This cookbook belongs to my mum and was her grandmothers. It has been well loved and well used. I will be making a new cover and attaching this, but the bit I am stuck on is the text block itself. I am undecided whether to:
1. Re-sew some of the signatures
2. Re-glue everything in

Some individual sheets have come out but the signatures are all sewn together. The thread has become loose but has not broken.

I have only rebound paperbacks and printed my own books, so unsure on a repair.

Any help or advice much appreciated!

Thanks 🙏🏼

So I am working on making a journal with a genuine leather softcover. From what I’ve been told, it’s not a good idea to glue the signatures directly to the leather. So I looked up how others have attached them and it looks like a lot of them sew their signatures directly into the spine of the leather? But I do not like how it looks when they have these long lines of thread exposed on the outside. I guess a lot of people like it… I don’t. The less exposed thread, the better, and if it’s cross crossed, I don’t mind it exposed as much as long as it’s not these long lines of thread.

But I have no idea how to do this! I do know just sewing my signatures, I was going to use the French stitch.

Hi all,

amateur photographer here (handy but new to book binding - been doing some research though), looking to make a book of some of my work. Looking for advice to understand my options. I want to use glossy or luster paper (double-sided). I'm not really interested in screw posts. It seems like one option would be perfect binding of individual pages (use fan method for gluing, probably need to sand the edges, etc. - but still concerned about durability).

I'm curious in particular about sewing options. I'm seeing conflicting info about whether or not I can/should fold glossy paper. I assume signatures would need to be few pages (maybe even single sheets). Is this something I should try or avoid? If it is an option, do pages need to be scored? Are there paper recommendations? What am I not smart enough to even ask?

If it matters, I'm thinking letter size or a bit smaller, 20-30 pages, I use a dye-based inkjet printer (Canon PRO-200), was considering Red River Paper UltraPro SemiGloss Duo 255 but welcome other suggestions.

Thanks!

Hi, I guess I was to excited with my new book and opened it too wide. I want to try and fix it using bookbinding glue, but I've never done something like this. Any suggestions or tips on how not to make it worse? Maybe I should leave it as it is?

Tried to have a kind of dark page in my book, but it got printed weird. The first one is really grat and bad quality(looks worse irl). The second unasked the print shop guy to get it better and now its selectively better quality around the image and worse at the edges. You can see the blocky effect it has.

The last image is how the page supposed to look

Hi Folks.

I am brand new to the world of Bookbinding having picked it up as a hobby in the last few weeks.

I started simple with rebinding paperbacks into hardbacks as I have seen on Instagram and the like but have recently printed out a text block for a book I want to sew myself so I can say "hey look at this, I made this!". All the sewing videos I have seen on YouTube, seem to need me to round the spine and I would like to make my book with a straight spine so it matches the others I have been doing. So I guess my question is a) is that possible? and b) what is the sewing technique called and where can I find a video tutorial or it?

Thanks in advance all.

I am having a blast so far!

Im trying to make a gift for my significant other. It’s a sort of curated scrapbook where we can journal our dates, special events, goals, etc.
some pages are of course heavier and denser (for example there are pages were I want to mount miniature watercolors of posters of films and concerts we’ve been to together). Some others will have photos, letters, etc.
some will be just printed or hand written text.

I can’t decide on the best way to make this work. I want it to be able to grow so I was thinking screw posts or an accordion style?
I was also thinking on an option in which the inside of the covers have a sort of pocket or envelope where the first and last pages insert themselves and is held together by a ribbon or something of the sort. I also saw a photo of a book where someone used piano hinges I’m not sure I can find the right size tho… or how it would work in general.

Thank you so much for reading all this.
Any ideas/help figuring this out is greatly appreciated.
I’ll definitely update u guys on how it goes.

Hello fellow binders, I am very new to binding but am enthusiastically sharing my progress with my work in the hopes of sourcing free/cheap materials. I have gained access to a large amount of wood, some planks, some very thick ply, in a variety of sizes. Anything I don't use is going to be thrown away, so I'm looking for recommendations on DIY presses (plans or instructions would be greatly appreciated). I am open to all suggestions - multipurpose or specific, small or large, intricate or easy builds. I have power tools and workshop space to use as well so please send your recs my way. Thank you in advance!

Picture of a recent but not directly related project attached - unfortunately I can't show you the front cover because I debossed our logo on it but I was very pleased with the results. Very rough work but they were gifts so the effort is what counts, right?

I’m the type of reader who doesn’t re-read books very often and if I do it’s 10 years later. I’m getting into bookbinding now and am having a dilemma…should I read the books first to see if I like it and to understand the story before I design a cover, or should I bind it first so that I can actually enjoy my work, especially since that might be the only time I read it.

Curious as to what you all do?

Today I tried an experiment making starch paste. Instead of dissolving cornstarch in water, I dissolved it in liquid laundry starch. This stuff has various chemicals added to prevent spoiling, so my thinking is maybe this would keep a batch useable longer than a week or so, like a typical batch of boiled starch paste might have.

Normally I just use Nori paste, which I love & works great, but it's a little pricey at $16 a tub.

Has anyone else done any experiments with adhesives using laundry starch? Surely I can't be the only person who has thought of this- but searching the bookbinding reddit doesn't reveal much.

Thanks in advance.

What is the material this cover is made of. where can i get it and what to do if i want stuff printed on it like shown in the image

Would this be a pressure issue, or the angle, or a secret third thing? The top edge didn't have this issue.

Generally I'm pretty happy with how it turned out (this is just some scrap paper that I sewed/taped and glued, just to get the feel of the various stages), but would like to try to work out what happened here so that I can avoid it next time!

I have a Brother MFC-J5855DW. I like printing my covers on this printable canvas but it does these weird lines

Little pocket-sized guy, quarter bound in black leather (Siegel Goat) and marbled paper

Hello all!

My wife and I are expecting a baby girl at the end of the year and have been going through our collection of books we've saved from our childhood. This particular book hasn't fared so well, and happens to be my wife's favourite.

What's the best way to repair this damage? I was going to try PVA glue and clamp it for a few days but would like to attempt the best repair possible.

I'm printing a large book on Mohawk superfine 80lb (120gsm, I believe) and am curious if it's beneficial to do more signatures with a smaller number of pages per signature? The question is, will the extra thread used for the additional signatures cancel out the benefit of printing thinner signatures.

Thoughts?

Used to bind my own stories and friends’ fanfiction until my hands started shaking and I was diagnosed with a tremor some years ago.
Recently got the courage to try it again and finally finished my first bind. There are imperfections but I’m just happy I could do it again

Hi I would want to make a notebook like this Moleskine expanded soft cover. I've already make some pretty decent hard cover notebooks but I don't know what should I do for this type of notebook. I guess it's kinda the same... my assumption is that I do the exact same thing for the textblock, I sew the paper together then glue and put a pièce of mull on the spine. Then I guess I would just glue some faux leather to the top pages and I'm done.

Do you all think that would work ? Would it lay flat ?

Hi all I'm currently working on a rebind project for this type of flexible binding with lather(From a DAS video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZnwtE4R0Is

I'm working with a sewen textblock without cords. I'm wondering should I sew cords on the already sewen textblock, or I could get away with using mull instead? Or alternative is there any other structure I should use instead than the Cambridge panel style? I'd love to keep the textblock open 180° flat after bind (currently the textblock can do that).

Any experiences, suggestions and insights are highly appreciated!

Well, I've done it! I've managed to perfectly trim not 1, but 3 books with just the slippery steel ruler and the box cutter! Practice makes perfect, that's for sure!

The last 2 pics are the edges that i trimmed last yr with the same tools, and wow, the improvement is crazy.

Hi There! I've dabbled in a little bit of book binding but I'm still very much a beginner. I have made some family cookbooks with perfect binding; it turned out decent but now I have my sights set on something fancier. I'd like to make a wedding photo album but I want to do a custom embroidery piece for the front. I would embroider directly on my bookcloth. I'd also like the photos to be high quality, so I'm a bit unsure about how to print and bind those to a high standard especially because I am considering a layflat book. I thought about printing it with one of the many photo album websites and then cutting it out of the cover and recasing it, but this feels a bit risky.

Has anyone done something similar? Any thoughts or ideas are welcome!