How to bind your own Hardback Book

Step 15: Experiment and make loads of different books

Make books as presents, make them for school, make them for friends. Keep a pictorial journal, you never know, one day you might be famous, then think, how cool would it be when they unearth your journal, which is not only full of angst and perceptive youthful insights into the unfairness of it all, but is also embodied in a book that you yourself made and not some cheap (or expensive) note book / diary that you bought from the store like millions of other people.

I have made a couple more so far. I made the jeans one with a pocket after my niece, Josie suggested that I use the pockets from the trousers for pens and stuff... neat I thought, and it seems to work rather well.

See what you can come up with and if you make something you like, why not post the images here or email them to me and I will put them up on line on dadcando

Comments

[iolson]

Thanks so much for your great guide! I made a book for my sister and her sketches. She can never stop drawing.
I went off your guide a little bit to give the insides of the covers a decorative twist. As you can see, I added a bookmark and I am so pleased with the results!
Anyway, here's the album with five pictures of what my book looks like! Thank you, again!
-Ilsa

http://s1200.beta.photobucket.com/user/Ilsa7/library/Handmade%20Book

[faint]

Can you use something other than fabric/leather for the cover? Like wrapping paper or wallpaper or is it best just to use fabric?

[KaptinScarlet]

I think you can use anything because the body of the book is held to the cover by the fabric glued from the spine to the hard covers. Wall paper is a great idea, but make sure you wet it out  with water and even watered down white glue becuase it can be quite stiff / thick. You could even use embossed paper then if you sprayed the cover and treated it with gold rubbing paste it could look a bit like this: http://www.dadcando.com/default_MAKING.asp?project=SecretBoxBook&catagory=TheDragonry&lhs=TheDragonry which is another project of mine on dadcando.

[Boppylop]

hey kapitan scarlet im kinda new so mabey you could give me some pointers on making instructables cuz urs look AWESOME! i was also wondering like faint said but could you use tacky paper??? that is readily availible to me but I dont know if it will work.

[KaptinScarlet]

This is how I make my instructables: I use a vector drawing package and I explain the process here: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-illustrate-your-own-Instructable/

It's not difficult, but it does take time.

I don't think you could use tacky paper, but you could try perfect binding if you don't want to fold the pages. Perfect binding is when you get all the paper together in a neat stack and then glue one edge of it. This is how nearly all novels are bound when they are in paperback form.

[Boppylop]

Thanks Kapitan! I have a friend that's really into mideival stuff, so I'm gonna make one of these for him using red felt for the cover, and "inlay" it with "jewls" (aka flat marbles) and some silky material for a strap that keeps it from coming open by acident. Might not be done anytime soon, though. I'm working on something big for school.

[Whales]

 WEll i guess thats why you can experiment and tll us! but i guess if it wasnt just amazingly thin you could work it. If nothing else tape the wrappingpaper to another sheet of paper. then glue it on.

[nietzscheansuperman]

Whenever i download a (free) e-book or PDF i always print them out and bind them into books using this method. Brilliant tutorial, thank you x

[mitarienteh]

This is just AMAZING :D Thanks so much!

[aDimWit]

This is awesome, I have to make one. Thanks a lot.

[KaptinScarlet]

thanks

[defaultninja]

Thanks so much for these directions! I made a sketch book for my girlfriend - a bit amateur, but not bad for a first go. I hope to get better with the next book :)

[bill2009]

excellent - thank you.

[chibiusa]

It looks so great!! I'm gonna steal the idea of a book with a pocket for a pen (^_^) i just have to!! it's brilliant :)

[KaptinScarlet]

cool, that's what the idea is there for!

[Blofish]

Very nice work. thanks for posting it!
I commend you on the drawings, how were they made?

[KaptinScarlet]

thx, I used a vector drawing package and I explained the process here: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-illustrate-your-own-Instructable/

[Whales]

 i have finished mine. I made the cover from a canvas tot bag and used scrapbooking paper for the marbled.

i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab352/MrWhales/SANY0031.jpg

[KaptinScarlet]

that's nice well done.

[biblicalgeek]

This is a really awesome instructable. I can't wait to try it and there are some many possibilities as far as the design goes. Thanks a lot!

[Ges]

Wow, this was really helpful to read through, I'm planning on binding my first book next week. Two questions though, just regular printing paper is fine for doing this? Also, is there a type of fabric that doesn't work well for covers?

[KaptinScarlet]

Yes regular computer printer paper works just fine. But then because you are making the book yourself, you can out whatever paper in it you like and make it really funky. maybe add the odd page of tissue or tracing paper. As far as the cover goes, no most materials are suitable, but if you use thinner materials you have to be careful with the glue application on the outside as it can show through. You could experiment with rubber solution glue as well. When you're done why not take a nice picture of the book and post it here. Happy book binding

[Oliver Larsen]

Hi captain. I really love your Instructable, definitely gonna try it today. I just wanted to mention that, in all the comments and questions you've answered here, you asked them to post a picture, and no-one did post a picture. Haha.

[KaptinScarlet]

Thanks, but actually loads of people have posted pictures of their lovely books. there are 178 comments in all and quite a few pictures

[wupme]

This instructable is what i have been looking for. Everybody told me i need to stitch the pages togheter, but i see staples also seem to work. But what if i wanted to make a large book with the pages in A4. Can i just put one on another? Because i don't got a printer that can handle A3 to fold it, and those printing shops are way to expensive over here (lets you think they print with gold or something like that)....

[nachturnal]

It might be able to work.  I sew my math notes together at the end of every year of high school, and bind them, and they're always written on A4 looseleaf.

[irxo]

this is brilliant. what a wonderful and solid instructable. thank you! i keep what i like to call a "life book" which is a book that encompasses everything i write or draw - it serves as my sketchbook, dream journal, diary, notebook, qoute book, and idea book. pretty much everything i had separate lumped into one. my first one is a cachet brand 11x14 sketchbook - but how great would it be to make one myself? considering i have control over the size. i'm also thinking about the choice of paper - because i have a bit of a problem with sharpie ink bleeding through. i bet i could make a nice thick book of paper that's heavy enough to withstand ink. maybe even acrylic or other wet washes. this is exciting! do you have any suggestions for a page limit? do you think it's safe or possible to go beyond 128 pages? just curious. great idea with the jean pocket too! thank you again!

[moondance-ketreva]

I made a 1200 page book (600 sheets) for a similar endeavor, out of copyweight paper. Its like carrying around a college text and I can't imagine trying to make a larger one.

[KaptinScarlet]

thanks for your comments. I like the sound of your journal. no I don't think that there is any real limit on page numbers, although the bigger the book gets the heavier it is and you know with big books the spine is always under stress. Good luck though. If you do make one do post a pic here or even go to my website dadcando join up and upload an image there on this project... you'll find loads of other cool stuff there too.

[infojunkie]

I think the rubber stuff you're referring to in the U.S. is called "Rubber Cement." Will definitely try this one, searched the Google Machine and this one is the best. Thanx.

[atrum lupus]

I just made my first hardback with this awesome guide i used evo-stick contact adhesive like rubber stuff it worked far better then pva and only takes 10 mins to set ill upload a pic soon used red leather to bind it and sew the pages so it lasts longer :D looks amazing just need to find a nice paper for the lining now

[kaysergoogles]

Thank you for this instructable. I was able to create my own planner for this year. =)) Thank you again!

[KaptinScarlet]

Great, glad you like it. Hope you have a great year !

[Sezlar]

I am planning on writing a short story for my friend's birthday in December (long way off, I know) and I have been looking around and thinking of what I might like to do for the cover. Then I found this really informative and detailed Instructable and knew I'd found it. Thanks for posting this, what a great read. Just one question, though, how would you suggest that I put some text on the front? Embroidery, maybe?

[KaptinScarlet]

you could embroider, or better still you could use fabric paint and very carefully paint on what you want. Remember that fabric paint can bleed into the fabric slightly. The way I would do it is to design what I want on the computer, stick it onto a window pane with some tape and then tape up your fabric so that you can see the type through the fabric (you can also use a light box if you have one) and then very carefully paint on the letters. alternatively you could cut a stencil out using the printed sheet from your computer design and then spray with auto body car paint through the stencil. Whatever you do, have fun abd post a picture of the finished thing, I'd love to see it.

[Sezlar]

I've found an old pair of jeans at home, so will most likely use those and (hopefully you don't mind) copy the idea of yours as using the pocket as a pocket on the front. :D I do have a light box, actually, so I might do that. I've also found some cardboard letters at home that I bought from a craft shop a while back, so I think I might stitch those on by hand and do a whole range of things, really. Thanks for that advice, but I've thought of something else that concerns me. You know how you mentioned that you fold a couple of bits of A4 together and make bundles of those, well, with regards to that: I would really like to type the story using Word, but am thinking that I can only do this if I cut the pages in half, rather than folding them. If I glue them together in the same fashion i.e. holding them together with aligator clips and keeping it upright, do you think it would work the same or will the pages fall out?

[taraist]

Word will let you print out your story book style. I can't remember the exact way to do this, and this comment won't be much more helpful that this, but I know there is a way, as I've made plenty of cards that way when i was little. The only trouble after that is dividing your story in to 4 sections or so and then calculating what pages need to be printed on the same sheet. Does anyone know of a (free) software or program that will help you to do this? I'm making a book for Christmas and the formatting will be a nightmare unless I find something like that as well.

[Sezlar]

I've since found a way to do it on Publisher, actually. I just used a 1/2 A4 booklet template that I found and have copied and pasted all my text from Word into that. It's a bit tricky coz I want the pages to be back to back and so on, but I think I've found a system that works.

[KaptinScarlet]

I am sure that Word has a function that will do this for you. I have just searched for it and not found it, but I will keep looking and tell you if I find it. I have seen it befroe so I know that it can do it.

[Sezlar]

Thanks a lot. Like I mentioned, I have found one way using Microsoft Publisher (which, unfortunately, is not the best program to write a story in) but if you can find a way to do it in Word I'd love to hear it. Oh, and I've just uploaded my first book in case you want to check it out!