Why bind a book? How will this master class be useful? The answer is pretty simple. Maybe the cover of your old but beloved book is torn or doesn't look as attractive as it did when you bought it. Or maybe you printed it off the internet. After all, it would be more pleasant to store a printed edition not as a stack of sheets, but in a bound form. Or you wrote your novel, a collection of poems, and the printer asked too high a price for a couple of copies. This is where our interesting tutorial on how to bind a book at home comes in handy.
Do-it-yourself book binding
Of course, it will not be possible to achieve such quality as in a professional printing house, so if you need to bind a book for sale, it is better to turn to professionals for help. If for home use or as a gift, then our master class on how to bind a book yourself is what you need. Whodoes not like handmade work - this increases the value of the gift. And also such a handmade can serve as a new interesting decor for the home.
When designing a book, you can give free rein to your imagination, play with the colors of the cover, the main material, decorate to your liking. In addition, if you are interested in how to bind an old book at home, then our master class is a great way to restore your favorite literature.
Do-it-yourself hardcover editions are a very interesting, affordable and not too difficult hobby that a master with any experience can do. What's more, homemade hardcover books are not that expensive. It does not require complex equipment, expensive tools, or a large working space.
Required material
Before you start getting acquainted with the master class on how to bind a book yourself at home, let's talk about what materials and tools will be useful to us.
First of all, you need PVA glue for binding, it perfectly connects paper, fabric, and thick cardboard. And also for stitching you will need white threads, thin woolen or iris brands are perfect. If there are none, take a thin white rope.
Thick gauze or piece of cotton fabric to create a tight strong spine.
Cardboard of any color to reinforce the cover. Choose a very dense material so that it barely bends. It can be difficult to get one, but it can be replaced. For thisglue 2-3 sheets of cardboard together.
You can use both colored paper and fabric for pasting the cover: choose according to your taste or depending on the design of the book. You can also print the image on paper that is not too thick.
Kaptal for the spine is a small cloth roller. To understand what is at stake, look at the spine of a regular hardcover book. You can buy this at craft stores or online. You can replace the material with a dense canvas. In general, the captal is a decorative detail that covers the ugly spine and the inside of the book, so you can do without it.
Required tools
And of course, before binding a book at home, you need to prepare the necessary tools. There are not many of them, but they will definitely come in handy in the process of work.
For this purpose you will need:
- two boards;
- two clamps;
- metal file;
- paper knife (stationery);
- scissors;
- glue brushes stuffed tightly with lint.
Having prepared all the materials and tools for work, you can begin to get acquainted with the method of how to bind the book yourself.
Before you start
Before binding the book into hardcover yourself, take the remnants of the material, which, if unsuccessful, will not be a pity to throw away. After reviewing the master class, try to make your first binding on them - a draft version, so thatdo not spoil the good material and printed book.
To understand the principle of assembling a hardcover book, we strongly recommend that you carefully examine the printed products from the store. If there is a book that you don’t mind throwing away, then take it apart, inspect the spine, cover, feel the density in order to have an idea what we need to do with the finished printout.
Preparing a book or working with sheets
You can print the book in any size, but A5 format is optimal. After printing the stack (or maybe you want to restore an old edition), it needs to be aligned. To do this, tapping on the board or desktop from all sides, collect all the sheets in an even pile. Before doing this, be sure to carefully review them so that they are even, beautiful and fully printed.
When the edges become, in your opinion, even, very carefully place the stack on the board so that the future spine protrudes a few millimeters beyond it. This makes it easier to apply glue. And also carefully place the second board on top of the pile - the press. Thickly smear the protruding edge of the book with glue, you can in several layers. Let it dry, 2-3 minutes is enough, but it is better to wait 5-7.
There is another way to create a firm and strong spine. This method is most often used in printing houses. It's called "notebook". True, in this case you have to do a little more work. Each notebook (a stack of 6 sheets) will have to be stitched manually or onquality sewing machine.
In addition to making the book not look square, you will have to trim the edges, which is almost impossible to do at home.
When the glue dries, the pack can be moved. But still, carefully remove the top board and slowly slide the spine back onto the table. Clamp the future book between the boards with two clamps. Leave for a few hours. Ideally, PVA glue needs 12 hours to dry, but you can continue working after 3–4.
You can't clamp the book with clamps without boards, otherwise traces will remain.
The initial gluing of the sheets is necessary in order for the pack to hold tighter, not move, and it would be more convenient to work with it later. This is an important stage of the master class on how to bind a book at home.
Creating a spine
Let's proceed to the second stage of the master class, how to bind a book with your own hands. Remove clamps after drying. Move the book back to the edge of the table by 3 centimeters. Clamping the product with a clamp, make markings along the spine with a pencil every 2 cm. On the marks, make even cuts with a depth of at least 1 mm. They should be even and perpendicular to the spine.
Insert the white rope into the cuts, it should go in very tightly. This is an equally important stage in creating a spine, because the threads will help strengthen the book and prevent it from breaking or falling apart. Lubricate the spine together with the thread with PVA glue, make sure that it flows into the cuts.
While it dries, prepare the material. The piece of gauze should be 1 cm less than the spine, but the width is equal, and add 2 cm on both sides. Prepare a piece of captal.
In addition, for the spine you will need a small piece of paper, the size of which is 7-8 mm smaller than its length.
Densely smear the edge of the book block with glue, also soak gauze and captals with it. Do not glue the excess edges of the fabric to the sides of the book, they should hang freely. Attach gauze to the spine, top and bottom along a piece of captal, and up - a piece of paper. Press both the gauze and the paper firmly, pressing firmly against the stack. Leave the product to dry overnight.
Bookends
The next stage of the master class, how to bind a book into hardcover yourself, is the creation of the most hardcover.
Take a few sheets of thick paper, not necessarily white, you can use any color. Fold the bookends in half. If your book is A5, and whatman paper is A4, then its edges will have to be trimmed a little so that they are not larger than the book.
Having folded the flyleaf, try it on the book, and then, having glued the strip at the fold (4 mm), glue it to the block. Turn the book over, glue the second endpaper and put it under the press to dry for half an hour.
At this time, you can start creating the cover.
Cover
First, cut out the cardboard. The hardcover is in three parts. Measure the dimensions of the block, and then mark them on sheets of cardboard. Two identical crusts should be 8 cm longer than your blocksheets, and equal in width. The spine should be equal to the length of the crust, and thicker than the block in width.
Next, choose a paper of a suitable color and cut it. In height, it should protrude beyond the crusts by 2–3 cm on each side. On its reverse side, make the following markings, starting from the middle: the dimensions of the cardboard spine, the crusts on both sides, indents 8 mm on each side and 2–3 cm to the edge.
Then glue the cardboard and paper together. Glue the spine and two crusts onto the markup.
Leaving 3-4 mm from the corner of the cardboard, cut the corners of the paper diagonally. Spread the protruding edges on the sides of the future cover with glue and stick on the cardboard.
Put press on cover and leave for 1 hour.
After that, we move on to work on the cover decor. You can sign the book manually by drawing a picture or sticking a printout or a sticker. This is a matter of taste.
Connection
All we have left is to connect the block and the cover. Attach the book to the cover, check that it is not upside down. Then coat the spine with glue and press it to the block. Lubricate with glue and hanging a few centimeters of gauze. Glue it to the cardboard - the crust of the book. When applying, carefully press the parts to each other. Then attach the endpaper side of the book to the cardboard, thus covering both the cheesecloth and the side pieces of paper.
Close the book, run a pattern or ruler corner along the spine to sharpen it.
Put the book under the press overnight and it will be ready in the morning.
Our master class on how to bind a book at home is over. After spending a few days, you can issue any collection, your own book or a book printed from the Internet, without spending a significant amount in the printing house. We hope you find the knowledge of how to properly bind a book useful, because this method can be used to create many other useful things, such as albums, sketchbooks or notebooks.
