Why bind a book? How will this workshop be useful? The answer is pretty simple. Maybe the cover of your old but beloved book is torn or does not look as attractive as after the purchase. Or maybe you printed it from the Internet. After all, it would be more pleasant to store the printed publication not as a stack of sheets, but in bound form. Or you wrote your novel, a collection of poems, and the printing house asked for too high a price for a couple of copies. This is where our interesting training master class will be needed, how to bind a book at home.
DIY book binding
Of course, to achieve such quality as in a professional printing house will not work, 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 workshop on how to bind a book yourself is what you need. Who does not like do-it-yourself work - this increases the value of the gift. And also such a handmade can serve as a new interesting home decor.
Making a book, you can give free rein to your imagination, play with the colors of the cover, the basic material, decorate to your liking. In addition, if you are interested in how to bind an old book at home, then our workshop is a great way to restore your favorite literature.
Do-it-yourself hardcovering of publications is a very interesting, affordable and not too complicated hobby that a master with any experience can afford. Moreover, homemade hardcover books are not such an expensive undertaking. It does not require sophisticated equipment, expensive tools, or large work space.
Material needed
Before starting to get acquainted with the master class, how to bind the book yourself at home, let's talk about what materials and tools will be useful to us.
First of all, for binding, you need PVA glue, it perfectly combines paper, fabric, and thick cardboard. And also for stitching you will need white threads, fine woolen or iris brands are perfect. If there are none, take a thin white rope.
Thick gauze or piece of cotton to create a tight, sturdy root.
Cardboard of any color to strengthen the cover. Choose a very dense material so that it barely bends. It can be difficult to get one, but it can be replaced. To do this, glue 2-3 sheets of cardboard together.
To cover the cover, you can use both colored paper and fabric: choose to your taste or depending on the design of the book. You can still print the image on paper that is not too thick.
Cappal for the spine is a small cloth roller. To understand what is at stake, look at the spine of a regular hardback book. You can buy one in the stores for needlework or on the Internet. You can replace the material with a dense canvas. In general, captal is a decorative detail that covers the ugly spine and the insides of the book, so you can do without it.
Necessary tools
And of course, before binding a book at home, you need to prepare the necessary tools. There are few of them, but they will definitely come in handy in the process.
For such purposes, you will need:
- two boards;
- two clamps;
- file for metal;
- paper knife (clerical);
- scissors;
- glue brushes tightly packed with pile.
Having prepared all the materials and tools for the job, you can begin to get acquainted with the way how to bind the book yourself.
Before starting work
Before binding the book yourself into hardcover, take the rest of the material, which if it fails, it will not be a pity to throw it away. Having familiarized yourself with the master class, try to make your first hardcover on them - a draft version so as not to spoil the good material and the printed book.
To understand the principle of assembling a hardback book, we strongly recommend that you carefully examine the printed matter from the store. If there is a book that you are not sorry to throw away, then take it apart, inspect the spine, cover, feel the density in order to have an idea of what we need to do with the finished printout.
Preparing a book or working with sheets
You can print a book of any size, but the A5 format is optimal. Having printed the stack (or maybe you want to restore the old edition), you need to align it. To do this, tapping on a board or desktop from all sides, collect all the sheets in a flat pile. Before that, do not forget to carefully review them so that they are smooth, 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 slightly by a few millimeters. It is more convenient to apply glue. And also gently put on top of the stack the second board - the press. Lubricate the protruding edge of the book with glue, in several layers. Let it dry, 2-3 minutes are enough, but it is better to wait 5-7.
There is another way to create a solid and strong root. This method is most often used in the printing house. It is called a "notebook." True, in this case you will have to do a little more work. Each notebook (a stack of 6 sheets) will have to be stitched manually or on a high-quality sewing machine.
In addition, so that the book does 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 nevertheless, carefully remove the top board and slowly push the spine back onto the table. Hold the future book between the boards with two clamps. Leave for a few hours. Ideally, it takes 12 hours for the PVA glue to dry, but work can be continued after 3-4.
Clamping a book with clamps without boards is impossible, otherwise traces will remain.
The initial gluing of the sheets is necessary so that the bundle holds on more firmly, does not move and it is more convenient to work with it later. This is an important stage of the master class, how to make a book at home.
Spine Creation
We proceed to the second stage of the master class, how to make a book with our own hands. Remove the clamps after drying. Slide the book again to the edge of the table 3 centimeters. Clamping the product with a clamp, use a pencil on the spine to mark out every 2 cm. At 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 enter it very tightly. This is an equally important step in creating the root, because the threads will help strengthen the book and will not allow it to break or fall apart. Spread the spine together with the thread with PVA glue, make sure that it runs into cuts.
While it is drying, prepare the material. A piece of gauze should be 1 cm smaller than the root, but the width is equal, and add 2 cm on both sides. Prepare a section of the captal.
In addition, a small piece of paper, the size of which is 7-8 mm less than its length, will be needed for the spine.
Thickly glue the edge of the book block with glue, soak gauze and captals with it. Do not stick 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 the section of the captal, and top - a section of paper. Squeeze both the cheesecloth and the piece of paper firmly against the pile. Leave the product to dry overnight.
Bookends
The next stage of the workshop, how to bind a book into a hardcover by yourself, is to create the hardest cover.
Take a few sheets of thick paper, choose not necessarily white, you can use any color. Fold the flyleafs in half. If your book is in A5 format and A4 paper, then its edges will have to be slightly trimmed so that they are no longer a book.
Having folded the flyleaf, try it on the book, and then glue the strip at the fold (4 mm) with glue and glue it to the block. Turn the book over, glue the second bookend and put under the press to dry for half an hour.
At this time, you can create a cover.
Cover
First, cut the cardboard. Hardcover consists of three parts. Measure the dimensions of the block, and then mark them on the sheets of cardboard. Two identical crusts should be 8 cm longer than your block of sheets, and equal in width. The spine should be equal to the length of the crust, and the width is thicker than the block.
Next, select the paper of the appropriate color and cut it. In height, it should protrude beyond the crusts by 2-3 cm on each side. On its reverse side, make such a markup, starting from the middle: the dimensions of the cardboard spine, crusts on both sides, indents of 8 mm on each side and 2-3 cm to the edge.
Then glue the cardboard and paper together. Paste a spine and two crusts on the marking.
3-4 mm from the corner of the cardboard, diagonally cut the corners of the paper. Stick out the protruding edges on the sides of the future cover and glue it on cardboard.
Put the press on the cover and leave it for 1 hour.
After that, we proceed to work on the cover decor. You can sign the book manually by drawing a picture or gluing a printout, a sticker. This is a matter of taste.
Compound
All that remains for us is to connect the block and the cover. Attach the book to the cover, make sure that it is not upside down. Then glue the root with glue and press it against 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 together. Then attach the side of the bookend to the cardboard, thereby covering both the cheesecloth and the side sections of paper.
Close the book, draw a pattern or corner of the ruler on the spine to give it a sharp edge.
Put the book overnight under the press, and in the morning it will be ready.
Our master class, how to twist a book at home, is completed. After spending several days, you can draw up any collection of your own or a book printed from the Internet without spending a significant amount in the printing house. We hope you find it useful to know how to properly bind a book, because this method can create many other useful things, for example, albums, sketchbooks or notebooks.