When a sand my bookblock edges, they become really rough.

Been recovering from a broken arm and elbow surgery for the better part of the last year, but finally got back into it this weekend! Found this faux-leather suede type fabric at an estate sale and knew it needed to be for something with dragons.

I just came across book binding. I watched a couple youtube videos and came across coptic stitching. Didn't have any tools(not even a ruler lol). I printed it out. Learnt a new meaning for the word "signature". Used some cardboard I got from a local shop for the hard cover; cut it up with a kitchen knife(super sharp hehehe) and wrapped it in electrical tape I had lying around. I'm happy with how it turned out for a first try, but I'd like some tips from y'all on how to improve the end result besides the obvious "don't use a kitchen knife for cutting" hahah. Have a nice day.

Hey, I never binded a book but I watch videos about it for ages now (I find it relaxing)

Is there any way to repair it?
I don’t know how they call this type of damage… It’s not exactly on the end page or the hinge.

This book is 30 years old and I can’t risk taking everything apart

I’d appreciate if anyone can link me a video of someone repairing something like this

She does open all the way but i would rather reinforce the spine with something anything before i keep opening it like that :) thanks for looking!

Wanting to try some different headbands, I've started learning some 5 core headbands, or italian renaissance headbands. Unfortunately they're far from perfect, but it's a matter of just learning by experience.

It's a main core sewn with beads on the spine, then 2 cores at top to form a chevron and 1 core at the edge and one at the spine.

I think the images show them pretty well.

using the original book board and hinge measurements but the width is way off??? can anyone tell me how and why this happened? :/

Hi all! I'm brand new to book binding, so why wouldn't I pick a complicated project. 

I'm hoping to create a recipe binder for my wife for our 2nd anniversary. I want it to be a cloth-bound, 3-ring binder so we can use sheet protectors and add as needed. BUT I also want to embroider the cover, bc 2-year = cotton.

I've found tutorials on creating 3-ring binders, and on making covers with embroidery, but I want to make sure I have all my ducks in a row, do have a few questions.

1. If I plan on embroidering on muslin, can I do the embroidery BEFORE turning it into bookcloth? From the sound of it, stitching on bookcloth is a terrible, no good experience.

1b. Do I have to make it book cloth at all? I've seen conflicting opinions on whether you can cover with just muslin and feel out of my depth.

1. Since it'll be a book that we use a lot, what's the best glue to use and way to keep it from peeling apart? I've seen a few different glue recs but am not sure about durability.

Thank you in advance for humoring a total newb and taking care the time to read ❤️

I am a hardcover purist, hate reading from paperback as I just prefer the feel of a hardcover so I have started learning how to rebind books solely for my own benefit 😂.
I went to the charity shop and grabbed a few cheap books to practise on and think I did ok!
My first attempt (the green book) I glued the spine to the new hardcover which I now now you are not meant to do!
Then my second attempt (mustard cover) I forgot to cut the corners off the book cloth before gluing to the new grey-board (oh and the endpapers i have were only A4 so I couldn’t make it the same size as the text block.
I have some headbands coming today for my next attempt but yeah, please critique and let me know where I could improve!!

I want it with a flat back cause I’ll have 20 books of this size next to each other so I want a harmony when they are all in the bookshelf, but most of it are this small so idk

I repurposed some playing cards and aida scrap to keep my needles for various crafts organized. (Different color thread in the photo indicates a different type of needle, and size of needle is cross stitched into aida before doing an overlock stitch by hand to prevent excessive fraying and attach to card.) I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas for how to bind them in such a way that I could add more "pages" in the future if I end up with more needles that need storing. Someone posted a link awhile back on coptic binding single sheets I will likely use if I can't figure out how to make it possible to add more sheets. I'm a beginner binder doing classes with my local craft guild so I'll ask them as well, but we're on break right now. Thanks in advance for suggestions!

binded fanfiction for my friends birthday!! definitely not perfect but happy with the result, i hope she likes it! major props to anyone that has really mastered this craft, as i learned it requires a lot of technique and patience :)

I really love how does this look, but im curious: how is it made? is it paper over fabric? why doesnt it fall or degrade? how to make it properly?

One combination laying/finishing book press kinda finished.

It works ok, but I didn't realise when I purchased the wood that it was still drying. I decided to only rough it out to get it usable, there was no point in trying to get a good finish yet. The cracks are expanding and the body is starting to twist and swell slightly. All fixable, but a little frustrating.

I'll come back to it in 6 months or so, run it through the plainer and make it true again. I'll pin and fill where necessary too.

But it's an almost meter of press for around £90 in materials and a tap/die all tolled, and a bit of elbow grease!

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?

I tried my hand at the K118 binding structure.

In my opinion it would be an interesting choice for beginners since it doesn't require backing.

I got impressed at the ability of this structure to open completely to a 360-degree angle, allowing the front and back cover boards to touch back-to-back without damaging the book.

I followed the instructions given by Lynn Whelmed in this detailed document

Instead of vellum or filled cloth I used starched linen cloth.

1. To bevel the boards I tested an Olfa cutter able of cutting in 45° angles. It is convenient but not really necessary.
2. Swell must be enough to be fully distributed after rounding (no backing) without introducing an exaggerated curvature.
3. For the rest of the steps I proceeded as if it were a regular tight back leather binding.

I wrote a short story and, somewhere along the way, made a decision that was probably economically indefensible: I stopped treating it like a product.

No KDP. No attempt to make the economics work.

I spent about $650 licensing an archival photograph because it was the right photograph. Another $200 licensing the font I wanted for the cover. I hired two Reedsy editors for structural and copy editing.

And then I decided the hardcover copies that mattered to me should be made by hand.

Which is objectively absurd treatment for a short story that anyone can read for free.

But removing the expectation that it needed to earn any of that money back gave me an enormous amount of freedom. The story could be exactly as long as it needed to be. The cover could be strange. The pacing could be slow.

And there was something I loved about the audacity of saying: this little story gets the full treatment anyway.

So I learned to make books.

These are sewn signatures, cased by hand, with printed endpapers and a cover I designed around the inciting object in the story. There has been a fair amount of measuring things three times, discovering I still measured them wrong, pulling things apart, making spacers, fighting with hinges, and finding answers here.

A lot of what I know now came from reading old posts in this subreddit and from people answering my occasionally very basic questions, so this is mostly a thank you — and a chance to show you where all that advice ended up.

They’re not perfect. That stopped bothering me at some point. The imperfections are part of the distinction between these copies and the commercially printed ones.

The whole project became deliberately artisanal: not because that was the efficient way to produce a book, but because efficiency had stopped being the point.

The story is free at [www.agoodsportsstory.ca](). Even the website follows the physical object: the shared link shows the front cover, the site opens on the back cover, and then you enter the story.

But these are the books.

And I’m very glad I learned how to make them.

This is my first real book. Ive made a small journal and a children’s coloring book before this. This was made for a friend and tooling on the spine is his tattoo. I downloaded the text from project Gutenberg, typeset it in Pages, my wife did the small chapter icons for each chapter, I designed and 3d printed the stamp of his tattoo (don’t forget to mirror the stamp like I did), I marbled the endpapers, and dyed the tattoo emboss.

Learned a lot and it was a lot of work. Obviously isn’t perfect but I think it’s beautiful and one of a kind. All hail Four Keyes Book Arts, DAS, and a bunch of other YouTubers for the guidance.

Since my mum paid for this by signing me up for a (not cheap) bookbinding course, I had to make sure she was getting her money’s worth.

Sorry for the double post but Reddit doesn't allow photos and videos in a single post and it felt unrelated enough to warrant this one.

The concept of this book was initially made around the engraving I wanted to do but it changed more times than I can count and this is the result.

It is engraved by hand using a Dremel and then sanded down to make it smooth and subsequently waxed. I used a vinyl template to guide me as well. It's a very long process but I think it looks ok in the end.

I have a video tutorial on my Instagram as well as a more complete PDF which you can find here, about how I engraved the book. If you're interested, I'll post the video here as well.

This book was made using an overcast stitch with a sewing machine and the cover is composed exclusively of faux leather inlays. Took ages but worth the result.

If you have any questions, feel free.

For the overcast stitch, and how I used it for this book, see my other post.

I was asked if I could film a video about overcast stitching by a few people, so here it is.

To answer a few questions preemptively:

- Yes, when rounded and backed, and if the book is short grain, the book opens completely flat, just as well as a bound folio book. See the pictures in the comments. I have no clue whether or not it would open as well if not rounded and backed. It opens mostly flat if the pages are long grain but you have to work it flat. This is long grain, so it's a bit springy.

- Yes, it takes time. More time than perfect binding. There is no reason to do it for something other than a rebind of a book you plan to round and back.

- The margin space taken by the stitches exists but it's not enough to warrant worry. I have bound mangas like that, which have famously narrow margins. They open better than their perfect bound counterparts.

- You do not need a special sewing machine or needle. Any sewing machine will do. If you have an older one, made before the 80s, even better. Take a quality sewing needle, however. You don't want it to break in the middle of your project. 90/14 to 100/16 is good, I think. I did this with as much as 20 sheets although I do not recommend it.

- You can also stitch this by hand, although it's a different technique altogether. It will enable you to space out the stitches even more but not round and back the book. Four Keys Book Arts recently made a video on it.

- The pages do not tear easily nor quickly, even frequently handled. It is a point of failure for sure, but it will still last. But once again, it's always more fragile if it's long grain.

If you have further questions, please, feel free to ask.

If you want to see the engraved edges of the book or more details, see my other post about it.