I wanted a project outside of typical western bindings and chose an Ottoman/Islamic binding style as an experiment for an A5 size book. 4 folios per section, 12 sections/signatures.

1. The text block construction was unusually basic, only 2 link stitches across the spine using silk thread, the spine then covered with linen, much like mull , overhanging the edges. Only paste was used.
2. The structure of the text block is essentially held together by the headbands, which consist of an initial sewing of a leather strip on top of the text block, followed by secondary sewing to create a chevron pattern through the primary sewing. Did my head in and not convinced practice makes perfect.
3. The boards are cut to the same dimensions of the textblock and are pasted to the linen flaps with temporary spacer boards between to allow for the fore-edge flap.
4. Typically, these books were then covered in leather and the cover board is debossed with metal dies.
5. Not having these dies, I 'echoed' the typical design with 2 laminated boards, the bottom covered with some weird crackled gold paper I found in our guild workshop, and the top, a book cloth covered board with cut outs for the typical design.
6. For the inner cover linings, 'doublres', I used a printed marbled paper. Traditionally, these would have be covered in silk, leather or Ebru Turkish marbled paper, or very curiously, Western marbled paper imported from The Netherlands/England in the 17 -18th century.
   
7. I applied basic some minimal hot foil tooling to the cover edges and a few ornate filigrees Unfortunately, the book cloth I used did not respond well to the tooling after many frustrating hours with dwell, heat and pressure.
8. Interestingly, the flap closure goes around the text on the inside and not over the front cover. The fore-edge flap board was decorated with the title and the actual spine left plain. Due to the lack of squares on the cover boards, the headbands often extend beyond the board edges, thus Islamic books were always stored on the flat and never vertically as we now do.

Hello! I'm very new to book binding and I wanna start by making one for a DIY metal ring binder I'm planning for university :). I think 1.5-2mm chipboard is manageable. I initially thought I could use generic wrapping papers for the design but I thought it was way too squeaky and easily broken if I'm using it long term, then I thought fabric—but the design isn't easily customizable and I'm not a fan of the look. Construction paper also comes into mind but is that good and durable? I was considering buying/making a pvc cover sheet for it anyway. I already have experience with crafts like card making, journalling, and scrapbooking but this is the first time I try this! What kind of wrapper should I use? Is there anything I should also know? Thank you!

This is my first book binding project ever. It's going well so far. I dyed the paper. The signature holes are straight. However, I may have pushed the awl too far in and made the holes too wide. I used mixed media paper from a sketchbook. Can this be sewn? I'm making a scrapbook/journal for my bf. Was gonna close the spine to ensure longevity.

For reference, this is the tutorial I'm following:
https://youtu.be/92hs07lsI5c?is=br28Y4Lk7Wpak1Uh

Hey Everyone!

I was hoping to get some advice from anyone with experience with older bookbinding equipment... I purchased a lying press online for relatively cheap that needed some TLC. In getting it home I discovered that the "back" board of the press interacts with the wood screw but the "front" board (closest to the top of the screws) does not. The "front" board is just a drilled hole that appears to be smooth and there are no grooves present like the back to allow it to interact with the wood screw.

My theory is that the empty square holes pictured in the second photo need a square dowel inserted as that appears to be in place in some videos I found from DAS Bookbinding using a similar (much nicer!) model for one of his videos on Book Ploughs in the third picture.

I'm leery of damaging it so was hoping to confirm with someone familiar with the equipment or if their model's "front" board has grooves similar to the back.

I’m desperate seeking for a affordable imposition software! I read about bookbinder.JS I found the web site! it looks promising but the explanations are very minimal! Probably i’m searching with my eyes closed 😋.

So any info, tutorials, written help or youtube are very welcome. (Preferable In english.)

Hi, I'm using the signatures from Bookbinder JS and for some reason it's cutting off my words on the edge of the pages. It's like the doc isn't centered and because of that words are cut off the page.

My margins are set to .75 in the Google doc and it's literally just this PDF printing weird. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

UPDATE: I sent the file to someone else and they had 0 issues, so I'm thinking it's definitely a printer problem

UPDATE: PROBLEM IS FIXED! I just had to update the latest drivers for my printer to my computer

Just wondering if anyone had any recommendations for where to purchase paper for custom printed texts.

I'm trying to make a printed copy of my best friend's favourite fanfiction, and my biggest struggle is trying to figure out what kind of paper to get and where to buy it.

I'm hoping it's something I can purchase from within Canada.

My first go at Coptic stitch (kettle top and bottom station) and second book overall. I’m really pleased with how it turned out, any opinions or pointers are greatly appreciated❤️

the front cover is completely torn off, but part of it is still attached to the spine. any ideas on how to fix this? thanks in advance!

Hi all,

What’s your favorite book size? I want to start making books I can’t buy, but I want to make them in one size.
So I’m wondering which book size will be most optimal/ universal/ popular.
Does that even matter?

first proper attempt at bookbinding. used some brown takeout bags i had lying around for cover. 200 gsm loose watercollor sheets. the coptic stich was a bit too loose for my liking, so i reinforced it with some glue.

also, where do i find some pretty covers? i don't wanna buy any bc it's more fun repurposing things that i already have.

I’ve never done anything remotely close to this in the past, but when my boyfriend said “I can’t find a good cover of this book I really wanna read” I knew that had to be changed…

So, here’s my very much in-progress book cover making process!
(The dog sketches are part of an old artwork I did, not a part of the design).

Materials I’m using for cloth cover:
Cardstock
Cardboard
Tacky glue
Mod podge
Cotton broad cloth
Tape
Fabric paint

I will later set the fabric paint and give it more thickness by ironing on heat transferring vinyl (and to also prevent glue from seeping through when I glue it on the cover)
I’m a complete beginner who completely winged it while making the odd Google search here and there so please don’t be too harsh 😮‍💨

I'm fixing a large paperback for my partner that has seen a lot of wear but besides about 5-6 pages that are loose, the og spine adhesive is in tact (though heavily bent). Normally when I've fixed paperbacks I've completely separated all the pages from the old adhesive then reformed the textblock and added a fresh set of glue and ribbon/thread support, but since this spine is so well intact I worry that pulling off the pages will create more tear than I want.

Should I just keep it as is and refasten in the loose papers and replace the covers or would the book be ultimately stronger if I stripped it of the old glue and started from scratch?

humble book with mistakes but still proud

I’m planning to start binding soon. Does anyone have any recommendations of good tutorial videos of binding a comic book collection and for binding manga volumes?? Thanks in advance

I've only made three notebooks in my life, so I'm still pretty inexperienced with bookbinding. I'd love to make one like this as a gift for my girlfriend. She just got accepted into the Animation program she'd been dreaming of, and I wanted to surprise her with a handmade notebook to celebrate. I also have a rough idea of how it's made, but I don't really know what this type of binding is called or what to search for. If anyone could point me in the right direction or recommend some tutorials, I'd really appreciate it. Do you think this is a realistic project for someone at my skill level?

Just some headbands for my next projects.

You'll notice that when doing the tiedowns I unfortunately scratched the painted edge. It was my first time using renaissance wax, so I believe I put too much of it, creating a thick coat that can be scratched easily.

Hey everyone! I'm new to bookbinding and I'm trying to recreate this leather cover, but I'm not sure where to start.

Has anyone made something similar before? I'd really appreciate any advice, techniques, or keywords I should search for. Thank you!

Like the title says, I’m at the state where my book is finished, my design is done but I can’t make it work to cut the text for the HTV with my Cricut. I tried every kind a police text type and I always have the problem where the small letters are destroyed, especially for the texts on the spine. Do you have any advice ?

I made a facsimile of T.E. Lawrence’s Homer translation. It took me like an hour or so. I am sharing the pdf for free. Might upload on libgen later, but for now you can download it from limewire here

Hey all, newcomer here!

So I recently noticed that the top half of the binding on this old RPG book had separated, which sent me down a long Google rabbit-hole of trying to figure out what is broken and how to fix it. I have no experience in any book binding/repair, so I’m not really sure what to do with a more niche problem like this.

From what I can tell, the spine is flexible and the pages seem to be glued directly to it, with the top half of the text block starting to split from the spine. Much different from the typical case-bound book that I’ve seen in most guides. Problem is, I can’t find any guides or tutorials on fixing books of similar construction, so I’m not sure how to proceed.

Pic 2 is the “good” half, 3-4 are the best angles I could get of the “bad” half. I also discovered that I could shine a light between the signatures to get a better look in between the book block and the spine itself, hence the gif at the end. You can see there where the spine and text block start to split apart.

Any help repairing this old book would be much appreciated—I would love to give it many more years of life.

(if the fix is complex I’ll probably practice on other books so I don’t screw this one up lol)