How to bind a book

Step 8 Preparing the covers

While the spine glue is drying, pull out your cover material and measure it.

You want:
The width of the pages plus 1/4"
The height of the pages plus 1/2"
(Make these as square* as possible)
Make two of these, obviously-- the front cover and back cover.
It is important to add the extra space so there's overhang and the cover completely protects the pages.

Cut the paper you are going to cover the cover with to:
The cover width plus 1/2" or 1"
The cover height plus 1/2" or 1"
This allows it to wrap over the edges and inside enough. If you look at a bound book, there is about 1/4" of the cover paper on the edges of the inside before it gets covered by endpaper.

Then prepare the spine piece-- a piece of coverstock the exact dimensions of the spine. It doesn't need to be papered (it'll be covered up by the bookcloth).

Glue the coverpaper onto the cover, making sure that it is centered (I like to apply glue to the board, then lower it onto the paper.)
Flatten it and work out all of the air bubbles with something round (I'm using a tin whistle in the picture), then apply glue to the edges of the paper, folding it over onto itself. You can either have square folds, or cut them with a knife/scissors into lovely 45 degree dovetails.

*Square means having all 90 degree angles. Or pi/2 radians, if you're into that sort of thing.

Comments

[sadtrapofgravity]

that woodsman up yonder stole my line :) (awesome instructable, btw)

[cloaked woodsman]

Your jokes are funny!