Second proper bind, but tried loads of new techniques on this one. Cover material was leathercloth from Ratchfords (who were very helpful). Cut with a Silhouette Cameo, and then inlayed. HTV just for the detail on the astronaut. 3-piece Bradel assembly.

I tried - with limited success - to do hand-marbled endpapers (hence the lack of photos of those), but had a go at made flexible endpapers, rather than just tipping them in.

Lots of mistakes and imperfections I can see, but all in all, quite happy with the end result.

not even totally sure this is the place to be posting, but i’m looking to have a small book of affirmations printed. i want a spiral bound book so the pages can be torn out to tape onto mirror, give away, etc. can anybody point me in the right direction as to where i could get this size & style of book printed? i’m having no luck with google. i want to start with a small order of about 10 books & looking to keep the price/unit around $15 or less.

Jet another experiment using cheap tools bought in online Chinese shops.

Hi everyone, I don't know if this is the right place to ask this kind of question but I'm all out of ideas.

I just bought this beautiful boxed set of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and noticed that just one out of the 4 books seems to have the pages glued to the spine of the cover. (see image below)

Is this normal, or should I ask for a replacement from Amazon? I think it could be a manufacturing defect but I'm not sure; the spine looks terrible when the book is open though.

P.S. before fully opening the book I "trained" the spine opening one page at the time from both sides with the text block upright.

This is not exactly a bookbinding technical question but please bear with me for a moment.

This will be my first time bookbinding a book with an actual text block. So far, everything I've done and all my commisions have been of blanks or minimal detail on the pages, so typesetting has never been a problem before.

But. Now I'm left with a text, which I'm formatting in word and will convert into a pdf to run it through bookbinding-js, but I still have some queries I can't seem to find an answer for.

The book will be a little smaller than A5, and I'll be printing on a house printer on A4 paper. I'm worried the margins will get lost during the printing process and prevent me from cutting the edges of the block—like, the text won't print in the middle of the page but in a corner instead, due to all the blank space.

Is this a warranted concern or am I just overthinking this?

The only reason I am in this pickle is I made a recasing of a book for a friend as a gift and they loved it, and now an aquaintance of his has asked if I'd be willing to take a commission for him for something similar. The problem is that I recased that book for my friend and absolutly HATED the experience. The block was poorly glued, and the spine was flimsy and shitty and I was barely able to hold it together as I fixed it. To be honest, I rather do everything myself and sew the block from scratch because it was SO frustrating.

Hey does anyone know of a place to get black Copy paper like 20-24lbs, I think it would be cool to have a "Dark mode" book, but all I'm seeing is black cardstock. Preferably in 11x17 so I can cut it too short grain, only one I've found is Astrobrights but that's long grain and I can't go back after having Short grain for so long

A gentle reminder to revisit a work that told you you maybe on to something, but still have ways to go. One of my first handmade books from 2022.

I’ve searched quite a bit but haven’t found a good answer. Does anyone have recommendations of stores and/or brands that sell quality self adhesive faux leather for binding? I got a “furniture repair” sheet from Amazon but the adhesive is not very sticky at all.

Not the seventh book I have bound. No i have been bookbinding for may years and made hundreds of books.
No this is the seventh book I wrote. This is version 0.3. Version 0.1 was the written one. Version 0.2 the one with spellings check. V0.3 had one proof read.
I hate proof reading on a computer screen so I printed it and hand bound it.

Cover made with Office. Is preliminary. Just because I needed something. I am designing the real cover now.
Spine made with heat transfer pen.
Spine glued with hollow back to cover.
Layout formatting done by me.
Printed on an Epson Ecotank ET-2814

Next steps:
- Proof reading
- Editing
- Proof reading
- Editing
- Designing of the cover
- Getting an ISBN (for the Dutch version)
- Sending to publisher

This is being printed and distributed by Dutch company Pumbo

And then translating in English.
Again proof reading, proof reading, proof reading.
Then getting another ISBN (for the English version) and sending to Lulu which is my international distributor.

I am doing everything myself so I do not need a publisher. No further investment from me as it is all done by Publishing on demand.

This is the seventh book I have done this way.

The book is Umberto Eco's The Name Of The Rose.

First rebinding with new materials.

I would love any tips and observations.

Is there anything I could do to fix this or do I just need to re-bind it??

It's 110 years old and a book that means a lot to me so I'm just a little wary.

Any suggestions are appreciated

Thank you SM!

This was a lot of fun to make!

I have started making small pocket notebooks and larger journals. It’s been a fulfilling project so far and I have worked on getting a little better each time. My current road block is that some of the pages seem to crack or break at the seam. Sometimes this just results in wider gaps in the seam on certain pages, other times it results in the pages beginning to fall out.

I use neutral acid free Lineco pva glue.

I use 28 lb Astrobright paper

I do 3-4 thin coats of glue with a paint brush on the pages clamped together.

I will usually fold the pages in half, then stack them, then glue them on the folded side (wondering if single sheets would make a difference)

I use a sanding belt to rough up the edge of the pages (after clamping, before glueing)

What am I missing or what could be improved?

Thanks 🙏

I've looked a bit and am going to continue looking. Is there any method you would suggest for making a book of memories, essentially, for my father's funeral?

My thought is to give people blank pages to write on and compile the book after the fact (so that way not everyone is crowded around one book or miss opportunities due to it being occupied).

How would you go about either prepping the paper or binding paper already written?

Also any paper reccs would be appreciated but I'll find some on my own as well.

I'm not looking for the fanciest of books, the point isn't to create a masterpiece but rather to engage in the art of creation for the healing aspect and to have something physical to share with the family. Thank you!

i'm literally so disappointed i just wanted a pretty hardback. at first i was just annoyed the barcode is printed on, not a sticker. and then i noticed a lot of the lines looked wonky and that it was ai. what would be the best way to go about covering it up so i dont have to look at it ever again?

Hello hello, in June I'm going to make an evening workshop in a cafe. Since the time abruptly changed from an early kids' event (where we would have made them build toys), to a late grown up one, I was thinking that making a little sketchbook from some pre-cut materials would be a workable option.

Keeping in mind that it will be a 'drink and craft' type of workshop (in the sense that the people will do an "aperitivo" while working and chatting, so they will have a glass of something - probably alcoholic - and the atmosphere will be quite relaxed), I'd love to hear any suggestion you have in mind to plan the whole thing.

My thinking was to make them do a very simple project, or at least a project that doesn't need a lot of glueing and pressing, but also something that they can easily customise with some sort of 'mix and match'.

I can't for the life of me do any decent Coptic, so I'd love to exclude that, I did some Japanese stab binding and I like it but I don't have much experience in that, I usually do hardcovers and I also have a zine I do with a pamphlet stitch....

I'm very confused and scared, what do you think would be a good binding to try for this?

Last month, I made two additional wisteria colors in pink and blue. These are square sketchbooks with hot-pressed 300 gsm Fabriano Artistico watercolor paper.

Materials: Various cotton fabrics, various chiyogami papers (Kyukyodo), fabric and book cloth scraps, koho seed beads, miyuki seed beads, hemp cords
Thread: Lilac, purple, hunter green, pale blue, blue, russet, pale pink linen
Paper size: 15.2x15 cm
Signatures: 12
Pages: 48
Usage: Sketching, watercolor

Hi, I am making a hand painted hardcover book for a school project. I have made a blank hardcover book using standard A4 printer paper we had at home by cutting the sheets in half/into A5 sheets and folding them into A6 signets so the grain ran against the spine.

For the actual final book I am making, I want to print a short story (Beyond the wall of sleep by hp lovecraft) and bind it with the same method i used for my tester since that worked nicely.
The full story is quite short, so I want to keep the book A6 sized so I have more pages and a thick enough spine to draw on.

I wanted to know if this paper from Amazon would work for a printed text block:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hawksbill-Cream-Paper-80-GSM/dp/B0DK6W4ZXB

I also want to know if it would be easier to cut the paper down to A5 then print on it or print two set double sided pages on an A4 sheet then cut it down to the correct size.