Bookbinding - in general

I finally managed to find a few spare hours to get rid of some paper from my "let's buy it, I might need it for a book"-storage and do some bookbinding again, after years. Well, actually I snatched a few spare hours when I should have been doing something else, but honestly, what's one supposed to do when time's always short? And promptly I discovered why I had taken so long a break from bookbinding: a few hurdles that still needed useful hacks. So here's what I found very helpful in an art where every millimetre has to fit and you can't allow yourself even the tiniest flaw that will in half a minute ruin a book that you have spent hours preparing.

The first book I made was a rather simple one in blue and white. The only reason: I could only find the blue-and-white headband, and as I said, with my books, every minute detail has to match...

The spine is covered in linen, the front and back in high quality Italian art paper. At the front, I decided to add some trim along the line where linen and paper meet. This is a nice way of covering up accidential glue blotches, but in this case I did it just because it looks nice. Just don't apply too much glue to the ribbon, and don't use glue that's been thinned too much. You'll end up with glue soaking through the ribbon and showing at the front. In which case you can use a contrasting, thinner piece of ribbon to cover up those blotches and add some additional colour accent...

Do, in any case, glue the end papers to the body of the book *before* you glue the bookmark and the headband, as you will have to cut the coloured paper to the measurements of the book and they will be in your way. So, end papers first, then bookmark and headband. Best would be to glue the end paper even before you have the rough-cut paper trimmed, but as I usually don't know beforehand what paper I'll be using for the cover, I have to do the second-best thing. So, glue the first end paper, trim it to the exact measurements of the book, then glue the second end paper and trim it. This way you'll never have anything in your way when cutting.

When you make the cover, mark the front end of the cover paper and fold it. It will facilitate quick orientation when the glue is on and you have to paste that sticky, curling thing to the cardboard. Put the slightly watered glue onto the paper first. The cardboard will soak it up too quickly to adjust the paper. When the front edge is in place, use a clean white paper napkin or a piece of white fabric to smoothen it over the cardboard and avoid wrinkles. The folding bone is too hard for this and will leave marks.

And when at last, in a great and risky finale, you're ready to attach the cover to the book, which means that you have to paste the end paper to the cover almost by instinct and ruin the whole book when this is not perfect, here's today's most clever find. Put the loose book into the cover and adjust it neatly. Then glue just the binding strips to the cover, very diligently on both sides. Let dry sufficiently with some plastic foil inserted to keep it from sticking to the end papers. Then, when it keeps in place, apply slightly watered glue to the end paper with a broad brush (not needing more than ten quick brush strokes at the very most is fine), having inserted waste paper between the paper and the rest of the book. Whisk out the waste paper and glue the cover to the end paper very diligently, trying to get even edges inside. Normally there's no glue now where it shouldn't be, so you don't risk glueing your book shut ;)

Usually you can loosen and re-position the paper up to three times if you're quick. Close and press the book evenly, open again and smoothen creases or bubbles using your clean napkin. Do the same on the other side, thank whoever you believe in if everything worked nicely, press the whole book over night and have tea to relax ;)

Or, as in my case, move on to the next book.

It seems I'm longing for the summer, as all my current designs are light in colour and summery in design.The second one is in shades of yellow with a print of yellow broom.

Historic book reproduction

I do collect antique books, but using the really old ones at a larp would be a matter of negligence, so I reproduce some works to add to my characters' libraries. In the case of scanned books, the process is simple: digitally retouch and clean the pages, print them on nice paper, bind them. Making a nice cover is the hardest thing, because even though books were bound in all manners, from leather with gold print to plain paper covers titled with ink, I as a perfectionist want to have as many reproductions as possible and in as nice a shape as possible.

Two of my first repros were Couperin's treatise "L'Art de Toucher le Clavecin" (1716) and de Lauze's "Apologie de la Danse" (1623).

Usually I bind them in coloured paper, using mute colours like browns, greys or dark greens, doing the spine and the corners in slightly contrasting colours. Tags with author and title are usually just added to the spine, I've never seen any original that has a title at the front. There also exist copies where the title is written directly onto the paper of the binding, not bothering to glue on an extra tag.

If you want, however, to bind the book in leather, make sure you use the thinnest, softest leather available. Glove-thin leather is just fine, a bit stronger still gives good results, and it should never be suede.

For the first cover of leather-bound reproductions I chose George Silver's "Paradoxes of Defence" (1599), brown pre-embossed leather, fleur-de-lys end-paper and, not necessarily authentic, metal corners. As my baroque character is not a novice with the sword, this would be one of the most-used books in her library, so better make it sturdy.

When I do half-linen covers I sometimes don't bother to join front, spine and back with a strip of paper before putting on the linen, but with paper-only or leather it's advisable, as paper isn't stable enough and leather rather flexible. So join the three parts of cardboard before you glue them to the leather. Before you fold in the edges you have to thin out the leather to get a smooth transition beneath the end paper, otherwise you'll have a bump beneath it where the leather ends. Cut or scrape with a very sharp blade (razor would be better) at an angle until you've thinned the cover all around.

Then glue all edges up. The corners cannot be folded like you would with paper or linen. Fold them and cut them well along the line where they meet.

Fold up and pinch slightly together

Cut along the line; still a bit too pointy here

Point removed, ready for finishing

Draw the corner endges firmly together with a folding bone and smooth them exactly edge to edge. There should be no glimpse of cardboard visible between them. Leather is very pliable, just force it to do your bidding. Deto the topmost corner tip. Smooth it down between the edges to form a nicely rounded corner. Press until dry, then attach the body as usual.

Next step: embossing the cover myself. Punches are already ordered...

Diary "Candy"

I also do some bookbinding, but way too seldom, so this year I decided to make a diary, inspired by some lovely stickers I found in a shop. Themed "candy", I chose a light blue paper for the pages, candyfloss-pink for the endpaper and wedgewood blue for the cover. The candy stickers were to be set into a framed cutout in the front cover, behind 'glass', like in a shop window.

The body of the book was done first, bound and glued, finished off with the endpaper. Then the parts for the cover were cut from strong cardboard, the front cover backed with light cardboard to support the rectangular cutout.





The cutout in the front cover, backed with the lighter cardboard, is then covered with paper in a nice colour to provide a background for the stickers. Front, back and spine piece are then made into a complete cover before the stickers and the framepiece are glued on. As I noticed that some of the stickers were thicker than the depth of the cardboard I used, I had to improvise and, instead of just covering the cutout with transparent foil and putting a frame on top, I had to make a double frame to add depth to the cutout. So, two identical cardboard frames, transparent film sandwiched in between and covered with the same paper as the rest of the cover.



At last, the book body is glued into the finished cover - after the bookmark has been added. In this case, I went for a slender satin ribbon with a little pink-iced cake at the end. The cake is about 1.8 cm by 1.2 cm, made of pink satin ribbon, stuffed with cotton, topped with a little red glass bead and sewn to the end of the bookmark.