PSA: print shops can be a good choice for trimming edges
Hey all, first post so I apologize if this is already widely known. I recently reached a point where I got stuck during my first binding and wanted to share my experience with outsourcing a small part of the process.
Been following along with several binding tutorials on YT, and had reached the part where I had the spine sewed up and glued nicely. I didn’t want the edges to remain scalloped, so I attempted to cut them with a box cutter. This went quite poorly. New blade didn’t help enough — the book was just too thick for the knife I was trying to use. I mangled two text blocks trying and couldn’t even recover with sandpaper.
My local UPS store has a proper guillotine, though! I went in and chatted with them, and they were willing to do all of trimming at a reasonable price (about $5 per book — top, bottom, and side). Much less expensive than buying and storing a guillotine myself. I marked the text blocks and drew lines over the end paper to show them exactly where to cut.
Turnaround was 24 hours (my store is small), and I am very happy with the result (images attached). Smooth, straight, and clean.
CAUTION:
Be very clear with third parties about what you want them to do! Turns out, the UPS Store *also* does book binding. The first time I brought them a text block there was a miscommunication and they ended up cutting off the glued spine and rebinding all of my hard work with a spiral binding I did not ask for. They refunded me, but that sucked. The manager was extremely apologetic, however, and did not once blame me for the mix-up (internal miscommunication with employees).
The pictures I posted are actually from my second attempt with this store. This time I included a note detailing that I only wanted three cuts, I wanted the glued spine left untouched, and I did NOT want a rebinding. My local UPS lady was very sweet and promised to do it personally this time. When I retrieved the books the next day, they didn’t charge me at all.
TLDR; local print shops like The UPS Store may have a guillotine and reasonably priced services. When using them, however, it is important to be extremely clear about what you want, mark the places you want cut, and remind them that you don’t want additional services (like rebinding). A note might help, too.