r/bookbinding

I recently needed a journal and finally had an excuse to use bookcloth I did a cyanotype on using flowers in my garden!

I've been interested in getting into paper marbling, and obtained the relevant supplies. But a question has come up. I bought my alum from Colophon, and their recommended mix is 3/4 cup of alum dissolved in one gallon of water. But every other source I consult says 1/3 cup of alum in water. For reference, here's Colophon:https://www.colophonbookarts.com/marbling/alum-aluminum-sulfate. And here's Talas https://blog.talasonline.com/post/two-methods-to-alum-paper-for-water-marbling and Galen Berry https://marbleart.us/AlumInfo.htm. I bought alum from Colophon so plan on following their ratio for now. But if I really don't need that much, it would be great. The shop is currently on hiatus, otherwise I would email directly and ask.

The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig

paperback to hardcover recasing, a birthday present for a friend

​

Printed it booklet style on A4, folded/cut it down, did French stitch binding, and made the cover with cheap materials.

What do you think about the overall result? Any notes or tips for improving the finish?

​This is a retirement gift for someone tomorrow. Hope he likes it.

* 30 three sheet signatures of 100 GSM Fabriano paper.

* Made endpapers with paste paper.

* Sewn on 5 hemp cords.

* Rounded and backed.

* Hand sewn three-colour endbands.

* 3mm boards laced.

* Tight back sheep leather covered.

* Blind tooling for decoration.

The square with diagonal lines on the cover is shifted to the right for a good reason: I made a mistake while tooling.

In the last page (not shown) I attached a label with a QR code that links a website explaining how this particular book was made, step by step.

Made this tiny MacOS folder style notebook just a while ago, with a coptic style binding. The dimensions turned out to be 100x125mm. It currently has an exposed spine with PVA holding things together.

The question is - do I leave the spine exposed like this, or add a paper liner like a classic composition notebook? Please let me know your thoughts and ideas!

After my last post about being lost and wanting to improve, I really looked at the tutorials and everything. I have an idea of what projects I want to pursue next. So I watched the tutorials in depth made a list of the things I needed and went to the market after an entire day of going from shop to shop in jaipur's city, I could barely find what I was looking for and what I found was underwhelming.

So like are any of you from the Indian subcontinent?

If yes where do you get your materials and everything?

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.

I am not fully satisfied with the book I made , but I am improving .

This is my best attempt so far. The pictures don't give the gold enough justice though. I didn't like the original cover anyway.

This is the first hardcover case binding that I’m doing. Is this fraying along the edge of the book cloth normal? Should I be able to do something about it? Is it because I used scissors instead of a rotary cutter? Do I need to repair this or do something about the fraying before I glue in the text block?

It's going to be a 2x2 mini square book made up of standard printer paper. The text block is just under an inch thick.

Just to get a little bit back into the swing of things! And because I had some leftover materials that matched each other well enough to go for a little quarter bind!

My first bookbinding project! Hard not to peek.

I have cover board on the table (I don't have any actual wood), then parchment paper, the book, more parchment, more board, then the bricks, with blotting paper (watercolor paper) within each of the endpapers. Looks okay?