Pages last longer, lie flatter, and look better inside a handsome, durable hardcover. When you've completed this bookbinding project, you'll have a durable, attractive, and personalized copy of MAKE (or other magazine or collection of loose pages) that will last forever and lie flat.
This Instructable is a longer version of the article that appears in heavily edited (in a good way) form in Make magazine, Volume 5. While the editors did a great job of distilling ramblings that far exceeded the word limit I was given into a concise and useful article, the limits of space prohibited much of the additional description, background, nuance, and pictures (larger versions of all the images in this Instructable are available in this Flickr set) of my original piece. So, I thought it was worth posting my first draft. What it lacks in polish I hope it makes up for in depth.
Note: Like most thick magazines or paperback books, MAKE is perfect bound: individual leaves (a leaf represents two pages, front and back, on one sheet of paper) are collected and glued directly to the spine, where the front and back cover (a single continuous wrapped sheet) meet. Shorter magazines are often saddle-stitch bound (longer sheets, representing two leaves each, are folded and stapled at their spine), which actually cuts out a number of steps for hand binding. If you've decided to bind a saddle-stitched magazine (or several into a single book), you've saved yourself a lot of trouble and can skip ahead to Step 4 ("Stitch the Signatures").
This Instructable is a longer version of the article that appears in heavily edited (in a good way) form in Make magazine, Volume 5. While the editors did a great job of distilling ramblings that far exceeded the word limit I was given into a concise and useful article, the limits of space prohibited much of the additional description, background, nuance, and pictures (larger versions of all the images in this Instructable are available in this Flickr set) of my original piece. So, I thought it was worth posting my first draft. What it lacks in polish I hope it makes up for in depth.
Note: Like most thick magazines or paperback books, MAKE is perfect bound: individual leaves (a leaf represents two pages, front and back, on one sheet of paper) are collected and glued directly to the spine, where the front and back cover (a single continuous wrapped sheet) meet. Shorter magazines are often saddle-stitch bound (longer sheets, representing two leaves each, are folded and stapled at their spine), which actually cuts out a number of steps for hand binding. If you've decided to bind a saddle-stitched magazine (or several into a single book), you've saved yourself a lot of trouble and can skip ahead to Step 4 ("Stitch the Signatures").
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Signing UpStep 1: Strip the Existing Cover
Before you can begin rebinding the book, you'll first need to remove the existing cover and glued spine. I found that MAKE's cover pulled away cleanly by simply applying gentle but heavy pressure where the cover meets the spine.
Use a utility knife and a heavy ruler (a carpenter's square is ideal) to cut about 1/8" from the spine (or as far in as it takes to clear the thickness of the glue).
Not counting the two pages of advertising on a single leaf, which you'll probably feel comfortable excluding from the book (sorry, ofoto), you now have 192 loose pages (96 leaves).
It's not a coincidence that this number divides evenly into six groups of 32 pages each (not counting the ad, which was likely printed separately from the rest of the pages and added to the process just before the pages were glued). Because of the way books and magazines are produced (many pages are printed on large sheets, which are then folded and cut as a group), it's more cost efficient to keep the page count to a number that is divisible by a standard number of pages for a pass on the printer. Even if the magazine ends up being perfect bound, the publisher doesn't want to waste any pages for a pass the printer's already making any more than they want it to make an additional pass for an extra page.
When each group of pages leaves the press, it's then folded and cut to form a signature: a collection of pages that looks just like a saddle-stitched magazine and acts as a basic building block for a longer book.
Use a utility knife and a heavy ruler (a carpenter's square is ideal) to cut about 1/8" from the spine (or as far in as it takes to clear the thickness of the glue).
Not counting the two pages of advertising on a single leaf, which you'll probably feel comfortable excluding from the book (sorry, ofoto), you now have 192 loose pages (96 leaves).
It's not a coincidence that this number divides evenly into six groups of 32 pages each (not counting the ad, which was likely printed separately from the rest of the pages and added to the process just before the pages were glued). Because of the way books and magazines are produced (many pages are printed on large sheets, which are then folded and cut as a group), it's more cost efficient to keep the page count to a number that is divisible by a standard number of pages for a pass on the printer. Even if the magazine ends up being perfect bound, the publisher doesn't want to waste any pages for a pass the printer's already making any more than they want it to make an additional pass for an extra page.
When each group of pages leaves the press, it's then folded and cut to form a signature: a collection of pages that looks just like a saddle-stitched magazine and acts as a basic building block for a longer book.
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Thank you for sharing this awesome tutorial!
Can mull be replaced with buckram which is a heavily starched interfacing or other interfacing? I know cheese cloth is probably too loosed weaved.
Thank you so much!
Angela
could you please remove this instructable from the Oodammo guns group?
the group is only for k'nex guns that shoot a certian type of k'nex, and this
has just about nothing to do with k'nex or oodammo. thank you.
At any rate, my apologies!
oversewing is basically taking the loose pages, and punching holes near the edge through all of them and sewing them together that way.... wikipedia explains it much better than i can http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oversewn_binding
See also here, has a few more more details:
http://www.indiana.edu/~libpres/manual/treatments/cbind/index.html
L