Book Binding Workshop
How to make a book (A6) : (as I remembered..)
- Fold paper into the preferred size, make little booklets consisting out of 4 spreads.
- For my book I used 5 booklets (in essence this can be as many as you want).
- Make 4 pinch holes in the spine of the booklets, use a needle.
- Sow the booklets using a string, leave roughly 5 centimeter at the beginning. Start from outside and connect each booklet to each other.
- Attach an extra spread to the front and back size, glueing only on part of the page to the booklet. The other part will be attached to the cover. Preferable you can use a different paper (color, weight).
- Glue the booklets together with the machine. Place a paper at the end of the rail, keep the rotars on and pin the paper together. Make sure it is fixed. When everything is prepared, let the machine glue it.
- To make the hard cover, use cardboard with minimum of 2mm. Cut out 2x 10.5x14.8 cm (= front and back) and 1.3x14.8 cm (= spine).
- Glue the covers and the spine to the cloth and keep 0,7 cm between every component. Keep an extra of 5 cm of cloth at each side, will help when folding the cloth over/to the cover.
- Measure 1 cm from every corner. Then cut away the rest of the cloth (cutted material are rectangles).
- Glue the bottom and top flap to the inside of the cover. Use some force to have it tight to its surface.
- Glue the side flaps to the inside of the cover. Make a little zij-vouw(?).
- Attach to the book at the spine a 'Kapitaalband' and a 'string'.
- Put glue on the page which is 'leftover' and lay out carefully in one part of the cover. Press hard.
- Turn the book and glue the 'leftover' page. Now close the book carefully and press hard. Don't open de book anymore, otherwise the page attached to book will tear.
- Put the book under a 'presser'. Place a knitting needle on top of the book near the spine. Keep it there and close the presser with little force. When done both sides, this will give a nice 'inkeping' near the spine of the book.
- Place the book under a big 'presser' and leave it there for a day. This will allow the glue to dry up nicely.