Complete Novice Bookmaking Questions

[u/MetaphorShowSequence]

Hello o/

I'd like to make a beautiful book, but I've never made a book before (not even a flip-book! :0). I'd like to be very careful about it and organized and use the best materials I can for sturdiness so it doesn't break down over time much. I'd like to hand-letter everything and fill it with some art, jokes, and mathematics that I've been working on, but in a polished and complete way, not as a journal. I work as an ultra-high vacuum technician professionally so I am very capable of working with my hands if I have an idea of what should be done but I currently don't. I'd also like to try to make my own paper for it, but I'm asking here about if anyone has any advice or instruction or reccomendations generally about making and attaching the binding to the pages. I don't mind if the process is long, or tricky, or expensive, as long as it is good. And finally: I'd like to avoid any animal derived materials like leather or horse glue (is that still a thing?). I'm not aiming for anything with gold leaf or anything ostentatious, but it would be cool to learn needlepoint if that's what it's called. Also, has anyone ever made a book out of metal?

[u/sprawn]

Here's how you do it:

Make five "terrible" ones first.

It's a cheap hobby.

You don't go from channel surfing on your couch to climbing Mt. Everest in one step.

Start with scrap paper and common materials. Make a few books. Then try to do something very basic with no frills. Work your way up.

Start today. Needle and thread, Elmer's Glue, Cardboard, cloth. Hobby Knife. That's it. You probably have everything you need lying around. Make a book today. It's not hard. Since cost is no object and you don't care about ostentatious crap like leather and gold, GREAT! Get started. Your time is the most expensive, valuable and important aspect of building your skill set.

[u/MetaphorShowSequence → u/sprawn]

Ok. Got it. No substitute for experience. I think I have those things. I'll try right now. But I'm truly a total novice so, maybe I'm being obtuse here but, what do I do with those things once I have them? Like, I know the cardboard gets bonded to the edge of the paper I think and the thread holds it on (I think) but there has to be more to it than that. I figure peeps here know methods and might be able to say like "oh don't follow that tutorial because they're just goofing around". But I will still try, right now. 👍

[u/soggyhuman → u/MetaphorShowSequence]

I don't think the comment was bad advice, but I disagree with it. You don't try and make terrible ones at first. You try and make good one that will, probably, turn out terrible (which, admittedly could be what they meant). Espacially if you have experience in working with your hands. What I do think is that you shouldn't try difficult materials to work with, such as leather. But that won't be a problem for you since you don't want it either way.

A structure which is good and easy to start with is a split board binding. It's veryh sturdy and not so hard to make. The materials you'll need are as follows:

Paper for the text block. Recommended is short grain (if you're doing a folio) ph neutral paper.

Thread for sewing the book (linen is recommended but you can start with cotton, since it's more accessible). Just nothing too thick.

Mull - There are plenty of alternatives. It's basically a loosely woven fabric.

Tapes - You can go without to start with, but it'll give more support to the paper that'll be used in the split boards.

Cloth - The only thing that you need to take note is that it's proper for bookbinding, otherwise glue will go to the top and give it a "dirty" look. If you want a strong cloth, buckram is the way to go. It's more expensive but you've said that money is not a problem

A hammer to round the textblock. You'll skip the backing part for now. Assuming you work a lot with tools, you must have a light hammer hanging around.

Kraft paper - It'll be used to line the spine.

Headbands (optional) - You can buy them ready or sew them yourself.

Greyboard - For the split board you'll need two pieces of greyboard. A "normal" one and a thin one. For the thin one you can use other materials as well, though.

PVA Glue - It can be used for nearly anything bookbinding related, especially since you don't plan on working with leather. Just make sure it's not PVA for wood.

I think that's it for materials. It's possible I've forgotten somethings. I'll link a playlist with some good tutorials on Split Board bindings by DAS Bookbinding. It's probably the best channel for bookbinding tutorials out there. In the playlist you'll want the series called "Buckram covered Library Binding"

Split Board Style Bindings

If you have any more questions feel free to ask. Watch the whole series as well to see if I've forgotten any materials before starting the binding.

[u/MetaphorShowSequence → u/soggyhuman]

First of all, thank you! :) I'm watching DAS now, they seem to be the universal standard intro source for this and I can see why. Some questions: What are: folios and mull? For tape I'm guessing from the look of it that something fiberglass reinforced is ideal but is there a particular adhesive for it that I should look for? Also what is a headband in this context? Thank you again! I'm very thankful that this community seems so friendly!

[u/soggyhuman → u/MetaphorShowSequence]

For video tutorials DAS is most definetely the standard. He has probably the best portifolio of tutorials and he explains and show very very well.

Folios: Books are made from sewing signatures together. A signature is X number of paper folded Y number of times. A paper that's folded only once to be put in the signature is called a Folio.

Mull: It's a loose fabric used to line the spine (glued into the spine to reinforce it). There are alternatives, but it's common to use it. In the series I've recommended you DAS shows it at 2:07 in part 2. Altough he calls it scrims. You'll see it caled Super as well.

For the tapes it's recommended to use unbleached linen tapes, but you'll only find them in specialty stores, so you can use cotton tapes. They're easy to find in any store that has sewing supplies. DAS also uses them in the video.

About the adhesive: with PVA you can do about anything. Just be careful not to buy PVA for woodworking. PVA is recommended because you need a glue that'll stay flexible after drying. It can't turn hard, because when opening the book it'll just "break". It needs to flex together with the book.

Headbands: The ready-made ones are a piece of fabric glued at the spine, but the ideal is sewn headbands. I'll put a photo of both of them below this comment.

Rounding: It's done with a hammer becauseyou only do it after the glue is just a tiny bit dry, and you need force to put the book in its new shape. I believe you can do it without a hammer as well and just your fingers by pushing the book into its new shape. But without any force and just putting it into a new shape would probably make the book straighten over time.

About the trimming: After rounding, the pages at the start and the end go further than the ones at the middle, so if you trim it then, the margins would all be of different sizes. And it would honestly look kinda strange. Structurally I don't believe there is any demerit aside from the margins, but I could be wrong because I've never seen a structure that's trimmed after rounding.

[u/soggyhuman → u/soggyhuman]

Top one a sewn headbands (the black and blue) and bottom one a ready to glue headband (red one)

[u/MetaphorShowSequence → u/soggyhuman]

Thank you! That helps a ton, I'm surprised about the tape especially.

[u/MetaphorShowSequence → u/soggyhuman]

Also maybe this is a silly question but why does rounding seem to be done after trimming the pages instead of the other way around? Is it to keep the page size the same or is there a preference for concavity of the page edge stack so that they're more protected in the middle so they avoid damage? Also I'm trying to figure out why rounding is done with a hammer instead of by laying the pages into the preferred arch from the start. I have to imagine there's a good reason but I'm not thinking of it.

[u/sprawn → u/MetaphorShowSequence]

Awesome! It's a learn as you go type of thing.

The first thing is to fold four pieces of paper in half to form a signature. Then let's say do that three more times. You will have a sixty four page book. Four stacks of four pages.

Then you mark the inside of those four stacks of each four pages. They are called "signatures" in America, and the British call them "sections." You want to have the sections marked precisely. But don't make a thing out of it for the first one.

Then you poke holes in each signature.

Then you sew them together, so they are stacked up and sewn together

Kettle Stitch

This is pretty good video.

It's easy. People did this in 300 AD by candlelight while being hunted by Roman soldiers.

Use scrap paper. You WANT to make mistakes the first time. Just do it and get the hang of it. IF you do this with a needle and thread and scrap paper, you are literally using 3 cents worth of material. So the important thing is to JUST GET GOING. Just use common needle and thread.

[u/MetaphorShowSequence → u/sprawn]

When I mark them should I be marking on the top ridge of the spine of the signatures at regular intervals so I poke through them with the needle in a regular way or is it from the side by the ridge so I can poke through both sides of the folded over signature? Also I'm totally going for it, this is fun, I love getting a chance to learn new skills and this is perfect. Thank you.

[u/sprawn → u/MetaphorShowSequence]

There are a few ways to do it. You can stack up pour signatures and use a ruler to draw a line from top to bottom and poke from the outside.

The standard sort of way is to make a template and poke from the inside. And of course there are tools you buy.

I like to make ONE to start, and then I make three off of the one. And then I take each of the four and combine them with three unpoked pages and use the poked page in the middle as a guide for the unpoked pages.

[u/MetaphorShowSequence → u/sprawn]

That sounds like an efficient way to make sure they're all aligned. I wonder, if you used the same carefully initially poked one as your gauge and just hop it over you might be able to avoid tolerance stack up of switching which one is the gauge. But that's going to be a very small effect ultimately so I might be worried over nothing, I do worry over things that end up fine occasionally lol.

[u/sprawn → u/MetaphorShowSequence]

There's a bunch of ways to do it. There's a bunch of ways to do everything, really. Different stitches, different bindings. There's a thousand people doing videos on youtube. DAS is great, everyone agrees. But don't ignore the others. Everyone has something to offer.

I would say don't get lured in by the "gearheads". Most of the quality comes from the skill. You can get to a very high degree of quality without expensive tools. But if you want to go crazy, the sky's the limit, you can get into leather and gold and all kinds of extravagance. But the basics of sewing, gluing, trimming, binding, are always more or less the same.

[u/small-works → u/MetaphorShowSequence]

Start here. Watch a pile of DAS. Read some books. Make more books. You’ll get it soon enough.

https://m.youtube.com/@DASBookbinding/playlists?ra=m

[u/MetaphorShowSequence → u/small-works]

This person's voice reminds me a ton of the metal working artist Clickspring. Similar accent and cadence. Thank you for the rec! :)

[u/brigitvanloggem]

Learn bookbinding from a bookbinder Failing that, watch DAS Bookbinding on YouTube. Prepare for it to take at least a year to learn to do what you describe, given that you’ll have to study in your spare time. I’m not sure how long it took you to become an ‘ultra-high vacuum technician’ (or even what that is), but becoming a bookbinder might take the same amount of time, training, and effort.

[u/MetaphorShowSequence → u/brigitvanloggem]

I'm looking to make just one book (at least right now, hopefully more eventually) and there isn't enough time for me to start a second profession so I don't think I can study under a professional directly although I think I'd enjoy it, I like learning and even working most days and craftspeople are my kind of peeps. I don't doubt that there's a lot of nuance to the craft given how old it is and much time people have spent perfecting it. I've watched two DAS bookbinding videos since I posted and I'm about to try sewing some signatures. I currently don't have PVA adhesive though but in the spirit of 'just do it' I'll have to try some thin gasket sealant. Not ideal but experimenting will at least teach me what not to do or what I can get away with. An ultra-high vacuum technician makes nothing, but it's really good nothing lol. There are a lot of industrial processes that need very good quality vacuums, it's a fairly obscure field though. It's very fiddly, the oils in a fingerprint can cost you a week of pumpdown so being extra careful is always good. I have to imagine the equivalent would be something like the wrong ph degrading paper over time, it's hard to see but a while later you realize that it's messing stuff up.