Hello, habrapeople!
I read on Habré about stitching together a book and realized that I’m not the only one interested in the topic. The soul perked up: the proposed method of classical firmware produces a high-quality book, but not everyone can handle the effort and time invested in this labor feat. Plus, you need a lot of skill - no one can make a more or less high-quality book the first time. What does it cost to cut a block alone - do you really think that at least once in your life you will be able to do this exactly for a block of 200 sheets or more using a stationery knife? What if you want to make not just one book a year, but at least 2-3 a week? We would like simpler methods, and preferably no less effective. I'm sharing!

Method 1
If the volume is up to 40 sheets (and that’s already 80 pages!), we sew them together with a simple rotary stapler in the middle of the sheets, making a regular notebook (like a student’s notebook). To do this, we buy a rotary stapler designed for staples great depth. Its working part is capable of rotating 90 degrees, and a staple of great depth (not width, but depth) can easily pierce up to 40 sheets. In a few seconds we have a neatly stitched book.

Method 2 (virtually no limitation on book size)
Print the book on A4 paper or smaller. We take a stationery hole punch, and selecting 20-25 sheets from a stack, make holes in them. It is very important here that the holes are at the same distance on all sheets, both from the edge of the sheet and from top to bottom. To do this, you need to have a hole punch with a built-in alignment ruler. Such a hole punch costs exactly the same as without a ruler, but it will allow your future book to look quite neat. We simply insert the sheets with holes obtained in this way into a pre-purchased folder. The whole variety of such folders comes down to the following types: binders on sliders, on ropes, on staples. We select a folder on staples, paying attention to the following:
:: The size of the staple should be slightly larger than you need to insert all the sheets. Sheets should not fit end to end! The pages should turn freely after insertion.
:: The staples should be pulled apart as tightly as possible.
:: When the staples are connected, there should not be the slightest gap between them, otherwise the sheet will not fall out, but will cling when turned over, which is very annoying.
:: It is advisable that the staples be separated by hand - by tearing, or using the tabs at the bottom and top of the folder. Do not buy a folder where the staples are moved apart by a cumbersome mechanism - it will not be convenient to use, and the feeling of a “book” will disappear.
:: It is advisable to choose a soft cover for the folder. Its size must be larger than the sheets placed there. The best cover is made of plastic.
Just insert the sheets into such a folder - and the book is ready. And you don’t need to think that this is primitive: I have come across such books published by foreign publishing houses (though the staples are permanent). At first I thought they were just laughing at me. But no - foreigners perceive such “books” as books. Well, for them McDonald's is a restaurant.

Method 3
Buy a notebook for notes of a suitable size and volume (they come in up to 200 sheets, that’s 400 pages), on a plastic or metal spring, always with blank sheets (no “checkered” or “striped”). Carefully remove the spring (without any tools). You print a book on the received sheets. You put it back. Very carefully compress the spring with your fingers, pressing evenly on each “teeth”. Do not pinch or crush the teeth (otherwise the book will look untidy), the sheets will not fall out. A book of decent quality is ready.

Method 4
We print the book. Using a stationery hole punch, as in method No. 2, we make holes. But now we make a row of 4 holes - 2 higher, 3 lower. Don’t forget to prepare the bottom and top covers in the same way. At a hardware store we buy a device for planting rivets or lurex. Through the holes obtained, we connect the pages and covers using rivets or lurex. If the covers are made of cardboard or semi-cardboard, you need to use a ruler to crimp the cover along the opening line until the book opens for the first time. If the cover is made of plastic, you need to scratch half the depth of the plastic along the opening line with a nail - along this line it will open (it may not be possible to make a neat groove the first time). Of course, such a book will not open “all the way to the spine” - this must be taken into account when printing the contents. It turns out to be a very convenient and beautiful book. With some skill, you can make the cover from a single piece of material - then the “spine” will not be visible from the outside.

Method 5
We buy a binding machine with a plastic spring (this “spring” bears little resemblance to a spring). The machine costs from $30, and it is no more difficult to use than a toaster. Up to 500 sheets can be sewn using plastic springs. There are similar machines for sewing on a metal spring, but they and the springs for them are more expensive, and they will sew you no more than 130 sheets. The resulting books are very convenient to use. Correct name such machines “Binder for binding on a plastic (metal) spring.” When purchasing, pay attention to the following: the body and handles must be metal; knives must be turned off individually - the more, the better; there should be adjustment of the distance from the edge; choose a machine designed for the maximum number of pages to be stitched, and for the maximum of simultaneously perforated pages - do not skimp here; all knives must move synchronously and without the slightest snag; the rest, including the manufacturer, does not have special significance for an individual user.

Method 6
Let's make real books. “Real” ones come in two types: sewn and glued. Sewn ones are the highest quality, but also the most difficult to manufacture, which means they are not the topic of this article. Glued - the most common, look at your bookshelf: if the pages of a book in the spine area, under the cover, are connected by a half-millimeter layer of hardened glue - this is it. These are the books, and professional quality, and without any problems we will do it at home. To do this, you will need to buy a thermal binding machine for $50 and hot glue. The machine melts the initially hard hot melt adhesive. After printing and cutting, the block of sheets is inserted with the inside into the machine and crimped with it. The cover is manually glued onto the finished block of the book. That's it. This method can staple up to 700 sheets (depending on paper thickness).

Method 7
Metal channel binding (metalbind) promises high quality, instantaneous and inexpensive binding of up to 300-600 sheets of A4 80g/sq.m at home. The device, which costs about $200, compresses the block with a metal clamp along the entire block. According to reviews - very reliable. Interesting feature- the bracket can be unclenched and reused up to 10-20 times.

Note:
I tried all these methods (except metalbind) myself. I have a lot of books sewn this way. It's simple, fast, and truly accessible to everyone. Good luck!

Tags: binding, books

Binding - important point when creating a book, because it depends on how long it will last. If you need to make binding, there are two options: hand it over to professionals and pay a lot of money for it, or do everything yourself. We'll show you how to do it!

How to make book binding with your own hands?

Hardcover is a very lengthy and not easy task; here you need to do everything accurately, without any mistakes. For this work we need:

Boards, 2 pcs.;

Clamps, 2 pcs.;

Metal file;

Glue brush;

Scissors;

Paper knife.

These are just tools, you should also prepare the necessary materials:

PVA glue;

Threads, thick, white;

White cloth (a little stiffer than gauze);

Cardboard for the cover (or the cover itself);

Fabric roller for spine.

Let's get started!

1. We print a book on a printer. It is necessary to take into account that we are not making a book from notebooks, as is usually done in printing houses. In our case, we will simply fasten sheets of paper.

2. Next, we should align the pages of our future book well. Just take a stack of paper, lay out all the sheets in the correct order and align all the edges. This can be done by tapping each side of the stack on the table.

3. Place the sheets on the edges of the table so that the left edge protrudes slightly (hangs above the table). We place some weight on top of the sheets. You can use a stack of paper or a book. Lubricate the left edge of the book with PVA glue. Leave for 3-4 minutes to dry.

4. Next, when the pack has dried a little and we can move it more boldly, we move it completely onto a table or board so that it does not hang down. We put another board on top and secure it with clamps. Leave for several hours.

PVA glue dries in 12 hours, but in our case 3-4 hours is enough.

5. After 4 hours, remove the clamps and move two boards (with paper between them) to the edge of the table. They should protrude 2 centimeters beyond the edge of the table. We extend the paper from the planks by 2 millimeters. We clamp it with clamps and take a pencil in our hands. We make markings so that in the future we will know where to connect with thread.

You choose the interval between the sections yourself, from 1 to 3 centimeters.

Using a metal saw, we make a section 1 millimeter deep.

6. We take the rope, cut it into pieces 5 cm larger than the thickness of the book and insert it into the cuts.

To avoid getting your hands dirty with glue, prepare a piece of paper the size of the spine.

7. Let's start gluing. We insert the ropes, their ends should look out 2-3 centimeters on both sides. Carefully lubricate the spine with PVA glue, and carefully glue the gauze and rollers. We re-mix everything with glue again and glue a piece of paper. Leave everything for 12 hours to dry.

8. Let's start designing the endpapers. For them we will use white Whatman paper (other colors are also possible). Try to find the most good paper, since the cover will be held on it. We use A4 sheets, since our book is in A5 format. Fold two sheets in half. Glue the endpaper to the book. Having spread 3-4 millimeters of glue in the area of ​​the fold, we attach it first on one side, then on the other. Place under a press for half an hour.

9 . In the meantime, let's work on the cover. We take measurements on a piece of cardboard and draw them. The sheet should be divided into three parts, two of them will have a crust, and the third will have a spine. The dimensions should exceed the size of the book by 2-3 centimeters.

10. Insert white paper into the markings.

11. Glue it and trim the corners.

12 . We wrap the excess cardboard in the middle and glue it well.

13. We design the cover using the printed title.

Some time ago I wanted to read Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. I tried to read several translations and was not satisfied with any of them. Therefore, the decision was made to read in English! Finding these books in the original in our bookstores is quite difficult. And if there is, then only the first part of the cycle. IN electronic form somewhat easier to find. But I prefer to read from paper (I’ll definitely buy an E-ink reader - I really like it), so I print out books.

The first two books looked like this:

I read them with great pleasure, but they did not look very good. And I decided that " Life, the Universe, and Everything“needs to be made into a book.

Process with pictures and comments under the cut. Be careful, there are really a lot of pictures.

Seal

It would seem that what could be easier than printing a book? But there are several important points here.
First, you need to choose the right paper. All paper that is produced industrially on pulp and paper, has a clearly defined fiber direction. The vast majority of readers have access to only printers that can print on sheets no larger than A4. Almost all paper of this size (I tried about 20 brands) has the grain direction along the long side (short-to-short-side bends much worse than long-to-long). Try it yourself and you will immediately understand what we are talking about. We ideally want the fibers to be along the short side. Unfortunately, the packaging of regular office paper is not marked for this parameter. Of those 20 brands, all were “inappropriate.” It is put in quotes because the result does not deteriorate much, and I believe that if you do not have the necessary paper, then there is no point in worrying and printing on the one that you have.

Secondly, the pages on the book sheets are not in order.

We will do classic book. This means that in each notebook of the book block we will have 16 A5 pages - 4 A4 sheets printed on both sides and folded in half.

We start by creating a layout. I used OpenOffice Writer (hereinafter referred to as OOW). We select the desired typeface and font size, set the margins, and number the pages. Please note that the size should be larger than desired. A little later it will become clear why. Save and export to PDF.

OOW cannot print pages in random order. That is, if you set the page numbers 16 and 1, then it will print the first page first, and then the sixteenth. But Foxit Reader, which I use to view and work with PDF, does everything as it should. In the printer settings, select landscape sheet orientation, and in the FoxitReader print settings, select two pages on one sheet. This is where the increased font size comes in handy, because the actual page size will decrease.

Every two lines indicate the order in which the pages of one notebook are printed. First we print one side (8 pages), then we turn the paper over and print the second side.
I can have a calculator.

Printing more than one notebook at a time can be risky. First you need to understand the paper feeding features of a particular printer. And then we’ll have to work with notebooks. So printing one notebook at a time is our choice.

Assembling a book block

Here's what we got:

In my case, this is 8 notebooks.

There are many ways to make binding and stitch a book block; I will talk about those that I use myself.

Let's get started.

First you need to bend the notebooks in half. This is where sheets with the right direction fibers You can bend each sheet separately, or you can fold the entire notebook (4 sheets). I prefer the second option. It seems to me that this way the notebook turns out to be more complete. The spoon in the previous photo was not left over from lunch - it is very convenient for it to press the fold line.

The next step is desirable, but not required. It would be a good idea to press the folded edge of all notebooks into a special press. But without fanaticism, otherwise there is a risk of denting the notebooks.

While the notebooks are under pressure, we need to mark a template for punching holes. Take a piece of cardboard. We mark the edges (210 mm - according to the sheet format). To sew a book block we will use a 5 mm wide ribbon. In order for the book block to be very strong, we will sew it with three ribbons. Let's take the distance between the holes for the tapes to be 6-7 mm. And along the hole at a distance of 10 mm from the edge. Everything is clearly visible in the picture.

We mark each notebook along the fold.

We pierce holes from the inside with an awl. This is what we get on the outside.

We take pieces of tape and glue them at the required distance from each other with tape. We glue it to the very edge of the table. This is the most convenient way.

It doesn’t matter which notebook (first or last) to start with. The main thing is not to confuse their order. You need to pay close attention to page numbers. Otherwise you will have to redo it. I would like to immediately draw your attention to the fact that until the very moment of gluing the book block together, we can change whatever we want.
Here you can take a break and relax a little. Because sewing the block is a very important part of assembling the book.

Let's sew! For sewing I use embroidery thread. They are durable, obedient, colorful, quite thick and very easy to find. Have you ever seen a book sewn with lilac thread? I didn't see it either. That's why we take the bright one. Individuality is one of the reasons to do all this.

The use of weight is highly desirable. The notebooks will not move relative to each other.
The tapes are sheathed on the outside.

We've almost sewn two notebooks together. We secure the thread with a regular double knot.

From the third to the last notebook we fasten the thread in this way.

We secure the last notebook with a knot again.

Our book block is almost ready!

We use either a clamp like mine or a regular heavy weight on top.
We fix the block so that the edge protrudes slightly. We coat it with PVA glue (stationery glue is quite suitable). You need very little glue, just enough so that it penetrates slightly between the notebooks. And we press it under a weight so that the notebooks stick together. There is no need to tighten too much.

Next we glue the endpapers. If we used regular office paper for printing, then for endpapers we need to use thick paper, from 130 g/m2. Endpapers will combine the binding and book block into one whole.

It is important here that everything is completely dry. While this is drying, we need to get ready to cut the block.

An old plastic folder, a piece of laminate, a clamp and a knife. If you have the same knife, be sure to replace the blade with a fresh one. The knife must be very sharp. No, not spicy, but SPICY. We clamp the completely dry block as shown in the photo. We press with all our weight on the edge of the laminate where the knife lies. Using clear movements, trim the edge. 3-4 sheets per pass. You can’t relax, otherwise the block will “leave.” It may not work out neatly the first time. And I’m afraid that it will be difficult to do without such a design. A simple ruler cannot be held. If you have friends in the printing house, you can ask them to cut it using a guillotine.

This is how beautiful it turned out.

The next stage is completing the assembly of the book block. First, glue a layer of gauze onto the end. It is also good to use filter paper. The goal is to reinforce the end so that the book lasts a long time.

To protect the corners of the book block, you need to stick captals on them. These are pieces of tape with one edge thicker than the other. You can stick a little more than you need. Then we'll trim it.

We leave everything to dry.

Making the binding

For binding we need two cardboards. They should be a few millimeters larger on each side than the trimmed book block. Binding cardboard can be bought at art stores (though they sell out quickly there), or you can take apart an archival folder. That's what I did. Strictly speaking, these cardboard boxes were left over from one of my previous bindings.

This time I decided to make a binding with fabric. For the first time, you can (and should) take a piece of old wallpaper. It will be beautiful and everything will stick perfectly. If you decide to take fabric, do not forget to iron it.

Between the thick cardboards lies a strip of thin cardboard. This will be the end of the book. The distance between them is 4-5 mm. For reliability, we glue the middle of the structure with filter paper. The fabric is marked. The cardboard is glued to the fabric.

The binding is ready!

Putting the book together

Oddly enough, this is one of the easiest stages.
We try the book block and the binding next to each other. We mark the best position.
We insert sheets of clean paper between the folds of the endpaper so that the glue does not bleed. Apply glue to the endpaper and cover. We use a brush to avoid dry spots.

We perform the same operation on the other side.

Place the book under the weight.

After a couple of hours, take it out and let it dry completely.
Our book is ready.

We read, enjoy and remember the main rule “Don't panic!”

Mai ashipki

Or what could have been done differently to make the result better.
I took a fabric that was too light and loose. Darker and denser would be more elegant.
The endpaper turned out to be folded.

I poured too much glue. And the paper for the endpaper was not thick enough. Ideally, only traces of the tapes on which the block was sewn would be visible.
The first pages were a little wobbly on the outer edges. This is because large quantity glue and due to the direction of the fibers.

Conclusion

Of course, it would be easier to just type and read. Or read from the screen. But I just love the process of creating a book. You can choose the font, paper, binding design, and not use what the publisher offers. It turns out to be a unique book. This, from my point of view, is one big plus.

The disadvantages include sufficient labor intensity. It took me almost the whole day to write one book.

And I apologize for the uneven photo quality. The lighting varied greatly throughout the day.

I somehow decided to try my hand at Forex, downloaded a bunch of e-books, and settled on one very good one that was quite voluminous in terms of the number of sheets (400 pages).

I decided to print the e-book and make it a hardcover.
E-book I had it in .dejvu format

The most important thing is to print the pages as needed.

Print Settings:

printing 2 pages on one side of an A4 sheet is A5 format.

We make the necessary fields so that it can be sewn without problems. I also made the markup - vertical line between the sheets, for the convenience of cutting the A4 sheet in half.

We print the sheets on both sides. But first I experimented a little to make sure everything printed as it should. I fed each sheet into the printer at manual mode. This took me about 20-30 minutes.

We cut the sheets into and sort them into pages.

We straighten the stack of sheets. We got all the sheets separately (not in notebooks).

We begin to fasten the sheets together into a book block.

To do this we need a small, naturally homemade press and PVA glue.

The press, as you can see, I made from 2 pieces of floorboard and 2 pins (from car tie rods), basically from what was at hand.

It looks like shown in the photo.

We align the stack of sheets and press them into a press. Coat the side to be sewn generously with PVA glue several times and let the glue dry completely. This is done to initially hold the sheets together and make it easier to work with the block. After gluing it takes some time to dry.

We take our book blank, and where we glued it for the first time, we make cuts to a depth of 3-4 mm.

I generously soaked the pieces of thread with PVA glue and pushed them tightly into the cuts.

After I finished with the threads, I once again generously coated this surface with glue. I placed the fabric over the glue and pressed it tightly. I coated the fabric on top with glue.

In this form, I put everything in a warm place.

All that remains is to make the endpapers and cover.

Since I don’t have the book for an exhibition but purely for myself, I decided not to bother with a hard cover, but used a cover from old book suitable size.

After drying, the outer edge of the book block must be trimmed to align the sheets, make the endpaper and glue the cover.

We cut the edge of the book without removing it from the press, placing a piece of plywood for rigidity.

I made the flyleaf, again, from what was at hand - from thick business paper (where business cards were printed) - 2 A4 sheets. Possibly from whatman paper.

Having folded the sheets of paper in half, I glued them like this: the first spread with one side in the first sheet of the book (and the second side for gluing to the cover, we will glue it a little later). I did the same with the last spread of the book.

What was printed on business card paper went inside, so all this mess is not visible.

We wait a little for the glue to dry, then glue the cover.

We glue the spine, together with the first spread of the book, to the cover.

After all these manipulations, I put the book under a large stack of other books for several hours.

Dried! The book is ready!

The endpaper stuck well and evenly.

The cover says a lot...

It actually turned out pretty funny!

A book about forex trading, and on the cover there are inscriptions: “The pioneer’s library, personal happiness, etc...”

The cover is many years old...

I made the books about a year and a half ago from the date of publication.

Now on the Internet I meet more best ways book bindings, where the pages are printed with notebooks and then sewn together with thread. And this can also be done with your own hands at home.

The article “” describes in more detail how to make such a binding. I recommend reading it too. It also talks about making the cover for the book.

Alternatively, thin books can be made with soft covers and all the sheets can be stitched at once. I shot books up to 30 pages in 2 places with a construction stapler. It turned out not bad either.

Good evening.

Finally hot weather drove me home and had some time to write the next topic.

Of course, the result will be completely different from the book. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any decent material on hand that could be inserted into the soft cover. But someone may find useful topics no less.

First, traditionally, a few words about fibers.

The fibers in office paper are arranged as shown in the photo. Why is this good? This is good because if we have a bunch of sheets, then when we sew them, our “book” will open and leaf through well, because the fibers of the paper will be located along the spine.

It should be noted that OpenOffice Writer has one very interesting feature(I would be very grateful if someone would write in the comments if there is something like this in MS Word). He knows how to mirror fields. The picture will make it clearer:

This way, we can set the internal margins a little larger than the external ones, because we will need them for stitching.

We will need:
1. The sheets themselves (I took a blank from my old educational screw-up-not-terribly-sewn block).
2. Jigsaw. You can take a hacksaw with a thin blade. But a jigsaw gives an even thinner and more accurate cut. However, it will be difficult for them to cut a thick block.
3. The “two-pieces-of-wood-with-holes-fastened-with-two-bolts-with-wing-nuts” clamp, familiar to you from the first article.
And, perhaps, there is no way to do this without a clamp. Fortunately, all its components cost pennies.

We carefully collect our stack of sheets and clamp them between pieces of wood. The stack should protrude 5-6 mm.

We pick up a jigsaw and cut. We need to make paired cuts in the form of a divided "V". In this case, my stack contains about 60 sheets and I make cuts to a depth of 3-4 mm. If the stack is larger, then we cut a little deeper - 4-5 mm (remember to set the internal margins a little larger!). For the long side of an A4 sheet, 6 paired cuts will be enough.

Now we have a stack of sheets with cuts. We take nylon thread - it is thin and durable. Using the cuts as wedges, we connect the sheets into one block.

We coat the end with glue, making sure that the glue gets into the cuts. We clamp the block between pieces of wood (do not forget to lay clean sheets so that the block does not stick to the press). We wait until it dries. If necessary, trim the edges as described in the link above.

This turns out to be a reversal.

If this is too difficult, then take a sheet of Whatman paper. In a familiar printing house, we ask you to make a creasing (punching a groove) according to the measurements from the article and glue the cover from whatman paper.

The maximum number of sheets that I have sewn together in this way is about 130. The block opens easily and is quite strong. Of course, if such a block is purposefully destroyed, it will collapse. But just reading is very comfortable. About more I won’t tell you the sheets - I’m afraid to lie.

Good books, high-quality pdfs and pleasant reading!

Many people are passionate not about reading, but about writing their works (prose and poetry). As soon as work on a literary creation ends, the question immediately arises of how to bind a book with your own hands at home. Book binding at home is also of interest to those who download literature from the Internet and print it on A4 sheets. Actually design the book in the best possible way not as difficult as it seems at first glance. Moreover, there are many ways to cope with this task yourself.

All people who have had to order book binding from a workshop admit that such a service costs a lot of money. But if you learn to weave printed publications with your own hands using available tools, you can save a lot.

DIY book binding

First of all, you should consider a method that allows you to make a hard cover for a thick book. What you will need for this:

• metal file;
• 2 boards;
• 2 clamps;
• paper knife;
• scissors;
• glue brush;
• thick sewing threads white or rope;
• PVA glue;
• material that resembles thick gauze (this is how the sides of jackets are sealed);
• thick cardboard;
• colored paper that will be used to design the book cover;
• drip.

Everything you need to do your own binding

The work of creating a binding consists of the following stages:

1. The preparatory stage, without a doubt, can be called the most important, since you will have to align all the pages that will make up the book. To even out the edges, take a stack of pages and tap them several times on a hard surface. The pages, aligned along the edges, must be laid on the board, and the spine of the future book should “look” at the master. The edge of the stack should extend slightly beyond the edge of the work surface.
2. You should very carefully place some kind of weight on the stack so as not to knock it down. Then you should take a brush, dip it in PVA glue and thickly lubricate the spine of the future book.
3. After 2-3 minutes after the glue has dried slightly, you need to remove the weighting agent from the stack, and then move the stack of pages away from the edge of the work surface so that it no longer sag. Then you should place a second board on the stack and compress everything tightly with two clamps. Everything needs to be left in this state for 3-4 hours. This time is necessary for the PVA glue to dry completely.
4. After removing the clamps, you need to move the stacks of boards to the edge of the surface again, so that the board protrudes beyond the edge of the table by 3 cm. In this case, the paper stack should protrude beyond the edge of the board by 2 millimeters. Again, everything should be secured with clamps.
5. Next, take a pencil and use it to outline the protruding edge. There should be several two-centimeter intervals. Then you need to take a metal file and cut markings with these tools (the size of each cut should not exceed 1 millimeter). All cuts must be the same.
6. At this stage of the work, take glue, a brush and rope. The thickness of the latter should be such that it fits tightly into the cuts. If threads are used instead of rope, then you need to twist them into something like a rope.
7. Let's start cutting out the gauze and captals. The length of the pieces of gauze should be 1 cm shorter than the spine of the book. The width of the gauze should be equal to the width of the spine, but add 2 centimeters on the sides. You should also separate 2 captals (the width of each coincides with the width of the spine). The edges of the captals should be lightly greased with glue. You should also prepare a strip of paper. Its length will be 7 millimeters less than the length of the spine. The width of the strip is similar to the width of the spine.
8. They take a brush, dip it in glue and begin to apply it thickly onto the spine with the cuts made. In this case, it is necessary to ensure that the glue gets into each cut. The rope or threads twisted into a bundle also need to be impregnated with glue. You need to insert a rope into each cut, but so that its ends protrude by 2-3 centimeters. You need to pull these ends well so that the rope (harness) is fixed in the cuts. Then you need to apply glue to the spine, then stick on gauze, and then the captals. Apply glue again on top of the captals and stick a strip of paper. The paper is carefully smoothed onto the spine of the future book. The glue will dry overnight. Once it is dry, the inside of the binding can be considered ready.
9. At this stage of binding a book, you need to remove the clamps and trim the ends of the rope (bundle of threads).

After the work has been done, you can begin making the endpapers. They can be made from either plain or colored paper. How to determine the endpaper size? The answer is simple - if the book is made in A5 format, then the endpaper should be in A4 format, folded in half. In this case, the outer edge of the endpaper should be shortened slightly, because the ends of the ropes protruding near the spine will interfere with gluing the endpaper.

Before you apply the endpaper, you should make sure that it is the correct size. After this, you need to lubricate the strip near the fold with glue and stick it on the block. The same should be done with the second side of the book. Afterwards, you need to put a weighting agent on the almost finished binding and start creating the cover.

How to make a cover?

1. First of all, you should deal with the cardboard, which will act as a seal for the cover. First of all, it needs to be cut. On a sheet of cardboard you should mark 2 crusts and a spine. The width of the crusts should be equal to the width of the blocks, while their length on each side should exceed the length of the block by 4 millimeters. How to cut decorative paper: in height it should be 2-3 centimeters longer than the crusts (on each side). The width of the cover paper should exceed the spine by 8 millimeters on each side. As for gluing, it should be done like this: one side of the crusts and the spine are coated with glue, then glued and pressed. Then the edges of the paper are cut diagonally with an indentation of 4 millimeters from the corner.
2. The protruding edges are then smeared with glue, folded into crusts, and smoothed. Then you need to put a weighting agent on the cover, which can be removed after 1 hour. The cover is designed based on personal preferences. It can be decorated with appliqués, glossy paper, voluminous compositions, etc.

Other ways

If the book is thin, its binding will be simpler. For example, if a book consists of forty sheets (or eighty pages), then the sheets need to be folded in half and sewn in the middle with a rotary stapler. This book will resemble a school notebook.

You can also buy a thick notebook on springs with perfectly clean sheets. The spring should be removed, and the book should be printed on blank sheets of paper, then hemmed back. To do this, you need to carefully compress the spring with your fingers, pressing on each of its teeth.

There is another method for making a book, but first of all you need to print out the pages that it will consist of on a printer. Then you need to divide everything into several piles of 20 pages. Use a hole punch to make holes in the pages. The holes must be at equal distances from each other, otherwise the book will turn out crooked. Afterwards, it is recommended to prepare a thick binder, the sheets into which are sewn using metal staples. When purchasing such a folder, you should pay attention to the size of the staples - all the sheets should not be sewn end to end, otherwise the book will be difficult to use.

If a person often has to make book bindings, then it is recommended to purchase special equipment for this work, for example, a binding machine equipped with plastic springs. This machine costs no more than thirty dollars. The equipment can sew up to five hundred sheets, and it is very easy to use. You can also find machines on sale that sew sheets onto metal springs, but they will cost more. In addition, machines with metal springs can stitch up to 130 sheets at a time.

To make books, you can also purchase a machine called a metalbind. The machine can staple a maximum of 600 sheets at a time. Such equipment costs no more than two hundred dollars. The machine compresses the pages tightly with metal staples along the block. By the way, metalbind staples can be used repeatedly. Once unclamped, the metal bracket can be used to stitch other books.

From the listed methods of binding books, everyone can choose the best one for themselves!

Every person has a favorite book that he often uses for many years. Such books deteriorate over time, especially if their covers were made in soft cover. In such cases, the question often arises: how to repair the binding of a book with your own hands? This can be done at home, without turning to specialists for help, whose services can cost the cost of a new book purchased in a store. To do this, you will need thick cardboard, glue and material for the cover of a future new book, which can be thick fabric, leather, kitchen oilcloth for tables and even felt.

Hardcover for a book

Today, books are no longer as relevant as they used to be, since any information can be found on the Internet. However, sometimes, when you see some interesting material, you want to transfer it from your computer to your bookshelf in the form of a book. A printer is used for such purposes, but how to make a hardcover for a homemade book and correctly connect the sheets together?

Making a book with your own hands

1. Making book bindings is a simple, useful and quite interesting task. First you should prepare the pages of the book. For example, if it is a book consisting of 48 sheets, then you will need 24 sheets folded in half. They need to be distributed equally into two piles, 12 pieces in each.
2. Then holes should be made in the sheets for stitching. To ensure that they are positioned perfectly evenly, it is advisable to prepare a template. To make it, you will need a strip of paper, the length of which should be equal to the height of the book pages. Fold the strip in half, and on the fold, use a pencil to mark 6 holes at equal distances. Pierce each mark with an awl.

1. Next, you need to take one by one the sheets of the future book folded in half, put their template inside and use an awl to pierce holes in the places where they are folded. When all the sheets are pierced, you can start stitching them together: first one block of 12 sheets, and then another.

1. When the blocks are stitched, their “spines” must be treated with glue and placed under a press until it dries completely.

1. At the top and bottom of the blocks you need to glue small rectangular pieces of fabric to connect the blocks together.

1. Making a book binding with your own hands using this master class is quite simple. This way you can both print and create new book, and repair the old one. Once the pages of the book are sewn together, you can begin making the cover. To do this you will need thick cardboard and a rectangular piece of fabric. Cut out two identical rectangles of appropriate sizes and one rectangular strip for the spine of the book from cardboard.

1. Cover the cardboard with fabric and leave the workpiece to dry completely for several hours. Once the cover is dry, join it to the page blocks by gluing it to the first and last pages of the book. Close the book and place under a press until completely dry.

1. When the glue is completely dry, you can remove it from the press and decorate the cover with an inscription or applique. The book is ready!

Video on how to make a book binding with your own hands

Leather binding for a book

To replace an old worn out cover with a new one, it is best to use leather as a material. In this case, original embossing can be done on the soft cover. How to make leather book bindings with your own hands is described in detail in the next master class.

To work you will need:

• Thick sheets of paper for making endpapers.
• Thick cardboard for the cover.
• Leather.
• Glue.
• Wooden sticks.
• Scissors.
• Sharp stationery knife.
• Ruler.
• Cotton pads.
• A piece of fabric.

Manufacturing procedure:

1. First, remove the old cover and endpaper. To do this, after opening the book, you need to hold the first sheets with your hand and firmly but gently pull the cover. At the same time, make sure that the sheets and binding are not damaged.

1. Clean the spine of the book from any remaining paper and glue by soaking a cloth or cotton pad in water and wiping the book binding.

1. Now you need to choose a suitable sheet for the endpaper. Depending on your preferences, it can be plain thick paper or a sheet with a print. Using a ruler and marker, draw the markings, attach the ruler to it and cut with a utility knife. The height of the sheet should correspond to the height of the pages of the book, and the width should be twice as large.
2. Next, you need to bend the cut sheet in half, and then unfold and bend it into reverse side. You will need two of these parts.

1. The sheets folded in half should be attached to the book on both sides. If there is such a need, then adjust the sizes. Next, you need to apply glue to the first page of the book and glue one half of the endpaper to it. At the same time, make sure that there is not too much glue - the future product should look neat.

1. Take the prepared fabric, iron it until it is completely flat and cut out a rectangle for the spine of the book. Its length should be slightly shorter than the height of the book. Apply glue to it and attach it to the spine.

1. The remaining free edges of the book spine should be sealed with two small pieces of fabric soaked in glue.

1. Now you need to cut out two rectangles from a sheet of thick cardboard - the bases for the cover, attach them to the book and check if the size matches. If necessary, they should be trimmed. Since this is a cover, its edges should protrude from the pages by a few millimeters on all sides except for the one that will be adjacent to the spine.
2. To create a beautifully bound book, you can use decorative embossing. To do this, you will need to make a three-dimensional pattern from the same thick cardboard. Apply the desired design and cut it out using a special machine or by hand. The finished carved cover base should then be glued to a plain, flat base.

1. Next, you need to cut out a cardboard strip, the length and width of which must correspond to the size of the spine. Use electrical tape to connect it to the two cover pieces. In this case, between all three parts it is necessary to leave indents 1 cm wide.

1. Carefully apply the prepared thin and elastic leather to the cardboard base of the cover, carefully greased with glue. When applying the material, use a special silicone spatula. In this case, the skin must be carefully pressed against the cardboard figure base, being careful not to stretch it.

1. The glued skin must remain motionless for some time to allow the glue to dry. Then it should be cut, leaving 2.5 cm on each side for hemming. The corners must be cut as shown in the photo:

1. Apply glue to the hem allowances, being especially careful with the folds at the corners and fold them in.

1. Wait for the glue to dry completely and glue the finished cover to the endpapers. In close proximity to the roots on the front side you need to put wooden sticks, and then send the cover to the press.

The cover is ready! Books self made bound in leather appearance They are not inferior to those bought in the store. In this way, you can update all the old editions of your library, and they will become a wonderful decoration for your bookshelf and the interior of the room as a whole.

In order to update your favorite book, you do not need any special equipment, expensive tools or materials. Give her new life you can use scrap materials that have been collecting dust in the pantry for years.

Video on how to make a hard cover for a book

Felt book

If you have small child, and you like to do handicrafts, then you can sew an educational book from felt for your baby. Step-by-step instructions will explain how to make the binding of such a book with your own hands:

1. Prepare felt of various bright colors, buttons, ribbons and other materials to decorate the book.
2. Now you need to cut out 12 rectangles for six sheets measuring 20:20 cm. Each sheet consists of two rectangles sewn together. Process their edges around the perimeter using a sewing machine.
3. Now you can start designing the pages. How they will look depends on your imagination. As an example, you can use the following photos:

1. To connect the book sheets together, rectangular strips of felt are used, sewn inside the pages.

1. To form a thick cover, insert cardboard between the fabric. The spine is also made of felt; for rigidity it is better to fold it in several layers.

Now you know how to make a binding for a felt book, and how it can be decorated. Such a book created with loving hands mothers, every child will like it and, most likely, will become one of your baby’s favorite items.

Would you like to update your favorite book in this way? Do you have any other ideas? Tell us about it in