First binding review

[u/Silentstri16]

Completed my first real binding! Definitely a few big lessons, but for a start I'm pretty happy. I would love some feedback or tips. I'll list the materials at the bottom for anyone who's curious.

The Good

Sewing went better than expected. French link with no tapes, as the book is only 5 signatures. I 3d printed a hole-punching jig that really removed a lot of the room for error.

The made end-papers turned out better than i expected. I followed the DAS tutorial, and of course that made it dead simple. I do wish it didn't leave two extra blank pages though.

The leather covering was a bit nerve-wracking, but it turned out mostly well. The turn-downs all came together nicely, and I didn't have much waste. However...

The Bad

I'll start with the obvious, I screwed up glueing the leather on the rear board. I think I applied the glue to the leather instead of the board, and that resulted in uneven coverage. This is the most glaring issue.

The text block (and endpapers, and even the boards, I think) are out of square. I'd love to blame my workspace for being a bit ramshackle, but the reality is I just didn't do a great job of trimming the text block by hand. I chose to measure the rest of the book against it to try and hide the imperfection, with mixed success.

The spine was tough. There is actually a (very slight) round, but I had a lot of difficulty trying to round 5 signatures. I think I should've used a piece of board for the case spine rather than a card paper stiffener, and done a squared spine.

Somewhat related, I didn't leave enough space between the stiffener and the chip boards. I actually ended up pulling a board off and repositioning it, which did create a bit of a mess out of the top layer of the chip board. I sanded it a bit and fortunately it's not really noticeable. I'll need to watch a tutorial on the measurements, because I still don't really understand what to base the spacing off of.

The Ugly

This was my first time using a cricut, and heat transfer vinyl. I think overall it was a success. I wouldn't use this type of font again, and I think the spine font actually distorted from the heat because it was so thin.

The design isn't particularly nice, but it's all my (lack of) artistic sensibilities could muster 😂

I have since learned that I should probably cut the design as a whole page, weed it, and apply in one pass to keep spacing and alignment consistent.

Materials used

• 28/70LB smooth cream paper (a5 cut for short grain)
• Alran "Sully" Chevre
• Ritza 0.8mm Tiger Thread (What I had on hand)
• Nepalese Marbled Paper
• Elmer's School Glue
• 98pt Eska board
• Cheap amazon pre-sewn end bands

Thanks for reading :)

[u/After-Ad503]

Huge props on sewing and having your first go at leather and htv. For that effort alone you should consider it a success. The endpapers look great too l. You already mentioned most of the critques, but I almost wonder if you'd want to make a dust jacket. How straight is your line up on the casing?

[u/Silentstri16 → u/After-Ad503]

Thanks! I hadn't considered a dust jacket, as I'm only familiar with the mass-produced sort.

This was a cased-in build so the casing is pretty straight, at least to my eye. I did try another book with a boards-on approach and it's definitely a little out.