I recently resumed my old hobby of bookbinding. I taught myself from this book originally; so far I’ve made probably 4 or 5 books, each one a little more confident and a little less messy than the one before. However, until this most recent book, I was quite out of practice. But as I’ve just turned 30, I’ve been inspired on many fronts to stop putting things off and resume the things that actually make me happy. So I thought it might be in order to bind a new sketchbook for myself, both as a way of getting myself drawing again and as a practice run before I start making books to sell on Etsy.
The process took about a week, start to finish, and while I documented each step on Twitter, I thought a comprehensive post might be helpful to those of you with an interest in how books used to get made. I’ll also make a few observations about the process and notes to myself to prevent some pretty obvious mistakes in the future. This is not meant to be a completely instructive guide, but I hope it will inspire those of you with an interest in such things to look into this craft further.
The first step in bookbinding is folding up signatures – there is no set number of how many sheets you should choose per signature, but I have always found 4 to be a good number. Too many, and folding becomes unnecessarily difficult. Too few and it’ll take forever.
Folding signatures is simply a matter of holding the edges in alignment as best you can, and creasing the edge. Bone folders work nicely for this, and can be found at most crafts stores for cheap. There is probably a fancier way to do it than just holding it by hand, but the imperfection that results from this process is part of the appeal (you can tell the old handmade books by the unevenness of the edges). For this project I decided on 10 signatures, which ought to result in an 80-page sketchbook, minus the front and back pages which would become endsheets.
It is helpful to etch a number at the inner corner of each signature, and while certainly not necessary, it adds to the handmade quality of it all.
The next step is to mark the signatures up for sewing. You use a woven tape to strengthen the spine of the book (another inexpensive item, easily found), and some sturdy thread. As far as how many pieces of tape to use, it is a matter of personal preference. The rule of thumb is that the more you have, the more evenly the stress will be distributed on the spine. This book being 8.5″x11″, I found 5 tapes to be sufficient. The tapes themselves are 3/8″, so you mark 5 sets of 1/2″ points along the spine to allow a bit of breathing room for each tape, as well as an entry/exit hole on both sides, where the thread will connect each signature to the next.
The next stage is probably the most fun – piercing and sewing.
Again, the guidebook suggests some fancy kits and equipment for piercing holes in the signatures, but I’ve found that you can get by just fine with two awls and two wine corks (synthetic ones are especially good). You take each signature, tap the edge to make sure it’s aligned, and place the cork inside it underneath the first marking. Pierce it with the awl, and then pierce the next spot while the first awl holds the alignment.
Working this way makes it easy to keep things orderly, and you just rotate or swap wine corks as need be.
When all the signatures are properly pierced it will look like this:
Next comes the fun part – sewing. I won’t go into too much detail here about knots and tying threads together; for the sake of understanding it is only important that you cut yourself a 30″ thread to start with, tie a triple or quadruple knot at the end so it’ll hold, and start sewing. Each signatures gets bound to the previous one with a kettlestitch, and after a few have been sewn together it becomes easy to thread in the tapes (which have been cut into roughly 4″ strips – the projected width of the book plus some length for attaching boards later on). You could sew the tapes in from the get-go; again, personal preference. As you run out of thread, cut yourself a new 30″ strand and tie them together (another one of those imperfections that give it the handmade touch – you can see all this inside the book when it’s finished).
When it’s all done you tie it off at the end, leaving another thick knot to prevent it from slipping out.
One tool that you absolutely cannot do without in this process is a good set of clamps. I use the Irwin 6″ Quick-Grip Minis. They are wonderfully easy to use and having several of them allows a good control over the work.
Once the signatures are securely tied together, you line it all up straight against the spine and clamp it down securely. Getting them properly aligned is crucial here, as we are about to start playing with glue.
The first thing to be attached is called the mull. It’s made of this thick, cheesecloth-like paper, and can be found in any crafts store. It is stiff but really absorbent, and acts as both the first reinforcement of the spine and the material that will bind the signatures to the boards. You cut the mull to cover both kettlestitches, and leave about an inch and a half on each side of the spine. It gets pretty heavily glued into the signatures; the clamp keeps the glue from seeping into the pages and the mull, once dry, will hold the spine in place.
Each stage at this point has to be accompanied by a good bit of waiting while the glue dries. Once the mull is securely glued on, the next step is to attach the boards. Typically 3 boards are cut: front, back, and spine. The tapes sewn into the signatures give the back of the book a bumpy feel, but I like to just soften this with a few layers of fabric instead of giving it a hard spine.
Once the boards have been cut properly, you cover the pages of the book with a few sheets of scratch paper to shield them (all steps from here on out are accompanied by protective scratch paper). Then the mull is brushed wet with the glue, and each board is pressed down onto it. It is crucial that the boards are attached correctly, edges hanging evenly over all sides of the paper. You have a small window of time to check this while the glue is still wet, and fiddle with it if necessary. With this book, I didn’t quite get them lined up. You wouldn’t see it unless you were looking for it, but the boards lean in slightly different directions. And while imperfection has its charm, getting this step right makes the remainder of the process go smoother.
This is a big step, so you check your alignment again and then place the book under weights.
Once this is done, it is time to put the cover paper on. The manual instructs you to measure the total height and width of the book laid open, with about 1/4″ extra material on all sides. I’ve found it to be helpful to double this, to give you a little leeway in case you’ve screwed up. It is better to have to cut down later than be short of material after the glue is applied.
Once the cover paper is cut, you lay it face down and mark up exactly where each board will go, and draw the spine in as well. In my case, I cut 3 matching strips of fabric to layer in.
Whether you’re using cardboard or fabric, the material that constitutes the book’s spine gets glued to the cover paper, not the signatures. This creates a bit of flexibility and it will be plenty secure once the front and back boards have been attached.
One more note: at this point, little additions such as headbands should be added; once the cover paper is on it is difficult to add anything. For headbands you just cut two short strips slightly longer than the width of the book, paste them so they hang just over the edges of the top and bottom, and let it dry. Things like bookmark ribbons should be put in earlier, glued in between the signatures and the mull.
You brush the cover paper down with glue, working outwards to keep things smooth. Start with one side, press the front cover board down into it, and check the alignment. You wait half an hour, turn it over, and do the same to the back. Once this is done you hope you’ve got it lined up correctly, and wait some more. Once the front and back are glued, it’s best to glue down the edges as well. You brush them down, and folder them over the edges. Once it’s dried, it looks like this:
Since this is going to be a sketchbook, I decided to cut up a brochure for the Center for Cartoon Studies to use as endsheets. Generally speaking, it’s wiser to use something a bit sturdier; there is a specific kind of fibrous paper that is best suited for endsheets. Another mistake I made with this book was using separate pieces of paper for the left and right sheets on each side of the book: in traditional bookmaking, one large sheet is used for each side. In the case of an 8 1/2″ x 11″ book, you’d cut out two 17″ x 11″ sheets. The endsheets are both protective and give the book a more finished look by covering the rough edges of the folded-over cover paper.
Using individual sheets, I just pressed each one into the recesses of the book as best I could. The reason you generally use one large sheet for both sides instead of two is that the constant opening and closing of the book will quickly cause peeling at the base. When you glue endsheets properly, you glue down the one side, use a bone folder to force it as deep into the crease as possible, and then glue down the other half. With no break between them, it holds together much more sturdily. But this was a practice run, so there you are.
Once everything has dried, the book is more or less complete. There will be a few tips that need re-gluing and smoothing out, and sometimes glue will have found it’s way into the edges of some signatures (going through the book page-by-page is a good way to smooth this out). As before, this was a practice run, and I made much more of a mess of things than I would have liked – I got several glue spots on the cover paper, and the split endsheets don’t look as nice as if they’d been one solid sheet. The beauty of the process, of course, is that every one is different and you learn a few things each time.
I put the finishing touch on with a Pixel Heart sticker from Diesel Sweeties.
Et voilà:
And that is that. I hope this was somewhat interesting and informative. Thank you for reading!
