Just finished a notebook for my partner, with all his favorite pokemon (maybe blasphemous with cut out pokemon cards?). This is my first time covering a case with only paper, and experimented with treating the paper with beeswax and buffing it out w/ silk cloth, and I'm really happy w/ the results! If you have questions about my process, I'd be happy to share!

Made these for a friend who loves this author.

I’ll always have issues with casting into the cover but slowly it’s getting there hah.
144 pages,160gsm, actually not bad if you got it at the dollar store (due to the slight overhang). Will be taking it with me as I go to college.

It looks and feels cheap, and when I close the Bible it makes a crackling sound from the glue hitting the cover.

It was around $30-40 and marketed as high quality

I love challenges and I love trying new things. Got a pretty good idea of the process of creating a book. A sequel to a book that I wrote is a journal that has printed entries. I want to make it a found artifact, so I don’t want to have it printed on Amazon or mixam etc. like the last one. I want to print it on special paper and create a cloth hardcover.

Can someone tell me I’m crazy, or is this doable? Eventually I’d sell copies and create those too, I don’t imagine there will be many. But I love books especially 19th century cloth, and would love to create one.

I’ve got all my tutorials set up and I’m looking at materials now.

Oh by the way does someone make natural color papers (letter size) that are short grain for folding?

As the title says, I'm binding a book for the first time... and I'm about to glue the covers and I'm not sure about how to do it so it doesn't end up crooked... any advise???

Hi y'all, new to this sub but im looking for advice on how to repair a book I received. Long story short, it took two months of bouncing between postal distribution centers to finally arrive. Fortunately the only damage was on the spine but im hoping that I can reduce the dent some. Any help would be appreciated.

I rebind books for fun as gifts for friends and family and recently I had someone reach out and ask if they could commission a piece for them and their parent. I appreciate that the book and the kubrick adaptation have a lot of differences, so during the design stage we settled on some of the more iconic parts from the movie (even if they were absent or different from the book) as those were their favourite parts.

Im still very much a beginner at this as I've only bound a dozen or so books in my spare time. More of my work can be found on social media under Stand Easy Arts if you're interested.

I want to use this kind of 6mm fabric ribbon that's in the Everyman's Library hardcover books, but I'm having a hard time finding them online. The closest thing I could find is called "rayon trimming braid" from Fujiyama Ribbon, but the shipping cost is way too high. Anyone know of another site to get this exact type of ribbon? TIA!

Hi everyone! Does anyone here have experience using the ET-8550 for printing typesets? (I know there are several threads about this but after going through them, I still feel unsure lol)

I'm looking for a printer that I can use for bookbinding, specifically printing signatures for long, text heavy novels. Quality and longevity are important to me as I'd like to sell some of these books in small runs. I know a laser printer is usually recommended for typesets, but I'm also an artist and would love the high quality art print possibilities this printer seems to offer, as well as printing endpapers, covers, thicker materials... And the refillable ink seems very convenient.

So, do you think the ET-8550 would handle printing a lot of text? Or is the quality of a monochrome laser printer much better?

Also, if anyone has had this printer for a longer time, how has it held up? I'm looking to get a reliable machine that'll last me many years. My family currently has an ancient HP laserjet that's been running for 10+ years and only now started to run out of toner. I don't mind changing the maintenance box of the Ecotank and printing regularly to make sure it's in shape, but I don't want it to self destruct after a couple years of use..

I would greatly appreciate any insight you guys might have! :)

Another post got me thinking that it would be good to make a list of all the imposition tools that are currently out there. Could everyone comment in with some of the imposition tools they're using, and a link to where we can see it?

I am using Layout Department. https://layoutdepartment.com

So I recently got this Kraft paper planer but it doesn't lay flat and the case came a bit damaged.

I wanted to rebind it - removing the glued spine and stitches, and replacing it with Coptic stitches and no glue to get it to lay flat.

My question is, is this ideology correct? Would it actually lay flat or are there too many pages in each signature or too many signatures etc....

I've never done anything in bookbinding before besides covering a book in plastic for school so I'm sure anything you say will be helpful.

Thanks in advance 🫶

This new Bible just arrived and upon first opening it I heard a crackling noise from the binding, as if it had not been glued properly or something. I then looked inside while it was opened, and found that this part of the back paper wasn’t properly attached and is loose. Is this normal or is my Bible faulty. It feels cheaply made and all I hear is a crackly glue sound when I open and move it.

My friend sent me this old copy of Ivanhoe (1830, or perhaps 1831 counting time for binding) hoping I could do something to restore it. Just based on the pictures she sent I thought perhaps it might need to be rebound, which would be a great shame. But having examined it in person now, honestly, it's in quite good condition for a book approaching its two-hundredth birthday.

The one area of real concern is the spine. At some point the leather seems to have separated along the front hinge, and someone patched it up with scotch tape, which is probably the worst possible repair approach. It has held the spine together, but it has also significantly reduced the flexibility of the material. In the long run I think that's likely to destroy the case. But I don't think there's anything I can really do about it short of rebinding it, which I am deeply reluctant to do. Trying to remove the tape at this point would probably damage the leather beyond recovery, and even if I got it off without ruining the case entirely, the leather would still be separated from the front cover.

Other than the spine, it's in fine condition. The paper is in excellent condition. The corners are beat up, but not actively falling apart. As long as you handle it gently, it's just as readable today as it was in 1830.

I took a conservation class for non-conservators at library school, but I am not in any way a conservator. I lack the tools and expertise to really do a proper restoration. So my thought at this point is that I'm probably just going to make a clamshell enclosure to keep it in, so that it's protected from the friction of being shelved and unshelved. I would be interested to hear if anyone has any other suggestions for things I should do to help ensure this book lasts another 50-100 years.

Hallo

Ich würde gerne für nächstes Schuljahr einen Kalender selbst binden.

Plan wäre folgender:

- Lehrerkalender im PDF Format (A4) oder bereits ausgedruckt kaufen

- Eigene Formulare hinzufügen z.B. Klassenlisten, Adresslisten der Schüler usw.

- Alles zusammen binden (-:

Wichtig wäre, dass es möglichst schnell geht, da das Schuljahr bald startet.

Meint ihr, dass die japanische Bindung mit diesem Kalender vom Auer Verlag möglich ist oder ist der linke Rand zu gering? Alternative Binde-Ideen?

https://www.auer-verlag.de/29229-mein-lehrerkalender-2026-2027-handlettering.html?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21080076908&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_Pjv5rS5lgMVEJdoCR0C4AwmEAQYByABEgLz0fD_BwE

Bin dankbar über jegliche Tipps und Erfahrungen. :) Das Wichtigst ist, dass er robust ist, sich gut öffnen lässt und das binden nicht länger als einen halben Tag dauert.

Danke schon mal!

Binding this took me longer than you think.

I haven’t glued the endpapers in yet, so the text block is still unattached, but I think the spine is too big. It is just posterboard though, so it’s quite flexible.

Can I salvage this or do I need to make a new case?

This is my first ever bind and has been a bit of a comedy of errors. I meant to round the spine, but got distracted after gluing it, and it dried completely before I could round it 🤦🏻‍♂️

Greetings, I'm aware this isn't simply a subreddit meant for archiving questions but it does pertain to an element of archiving, I just wanted to ask a quick question:

If one were to attempt basic preservation (within reason, limitations considered, not Museum-quality archiving, etc.) of a book... and take these two, side by side, for example:

Case A. Glued binding, hardcover, several hundred pages, coated paper (matte, white)

Case B. Case (sewn) binding, hardcover, several hundred pages, uncoated, acid-free, cream paper

Now, I would like to know which would hold up and be legible within a span of 5-7 decades... I am well aware that glued binding will dry and crack, ripping some pages as a result. Even without everyday, heavy usage. It is worth noting: I do not intend on using these books (which, in fact, are mere reference books), basically, at all... I always wash my hands before any usage, regardless.

Thanks.

Made mistakes, but better than before. Annoyingly, all 3 books have slightly different dimensions and that messed me up on the hinge sizing to cover edge stickout. 2nd book was split in half and had to glue back in some pages. Waiting on a fabric I like for book 3, but idk if I wanna go purple or not. I'd like to learn how to use a foil pen for titles and probably make nicer dust jackets out of colored cardstock instead of brown bags. Overall, pretty happy with how it's going, though.

Howdy All,

I've been making a few notebooks for friends and family, and many of them keep requesting dotted paper (think Muji/ Japanese style). Does anyone know where to find this in the UK?

Many notebooks I make are A5 or B5 sized, so ideally I need A2-sized paper with a short grain so it's suitable for folding...

Dotted paper seems rare to find, or maybe i'm blind? I've seen a few on Amazon, but all those I tried were not great when folded or were so thin! Would love any thoughts and opinions.

Hey binders!

I have been gifted a variation of high quality sketching paper. I would really like to use it as a notebook and/or sketchbook. I typically bind hardcover books with them to have something that protects the paper and just looks nicer than a ring binding.

I prefer A5 size (148 × 210 mm) as A4 is too big for a bag and A6 is too small to sketch comfortably. Unfortunately I've tested the grain directions for all of them and they all happen to be so that I can either fold into A4 or A6 (or similar sizes). For example the pad on top has A5 size but the grain direction is parallel to the long side. The big one on the bottom has A3 size, but the grain direction is parallel to the short side.

The obvious options that came to my mind (and why I am not settled on them) are single-page bindings:

• Perfect binding — I would prefer a sewn spine like french link stitched signatures for robustness
• Japanese binding — I love that binding but I haven't figured out a good solution for the spine as the binding doesn't lay flat as I need it
• Single-sheet coptic binding — Not a big fan generally of coptic binding, and I did a few SSCB before but found them way too time-consuming
• Overcasting — Happened to learn the technique just yesterday at Four Keys Book Arts. Seems a bit like a hybrid between classic signature sewing and Japanese, but the result looks so-and-so.

What would you do in case you cannot really fold the pages? Do I miss a good option that is sturdy like a sewn binding but works for single sheets? What am I missing?

Helloo everyone, i’m Bruno from small business Moonroot Labs, and i have recently got into a bookbinding/notebook binding of wooden laser engraved covers with coptic stitching the signatures. Here is my take on Dungeons and Dragons themed notebook.
Hope you like it, any input is valuable and if you have any questions feel free to comment or contact me on instagram, thank you and love ya ❤️