#casebinding

[three--rings]

Just remembered I had a dream last night where I cased in a book upside down TWICE.

In case you wonder what kind of nightmares bookbinders have.

[saintbeckett]

For better or worse....

…I finished my books for the Easter show.

Top. The War of the Worlds, and newly case bound multi  section book, with the textbook from Binders edition. I painted new endpapers and cover illustrations, and free hand tooled the cover design. And hand sewn end bands.

Middle. A repair and rebind of Mrs. Beeton's Shilling Cookbook. It was missing the covers and first few pages, so I made and designed new covers and endpapers by hand colouring prints of some of the plates inside the book. The book is sewn on cords and laced into the cover boards, 1/4 Leather bound, with my dodgy hand drawn blocking.

Bottom. Pictures of Sound, which is a booklet and CD from Dust To Digital. They have a digital download. Being in Australia it's really expensive to get their things here, so I figured I would print my own booklets and make my own special editions. This is a stab sewn textbook with simple printed paper covered board for the covers, with inlaid prints of the CD cover from and back. Endpapers are made from images from the booklet.

[ohmightydevviepuu]

ficbinding archive: landscape with a blur of conquerors / the hurricane wars

the story landscape with a blur of conquerors by diasterisms published as The Hurricane Wars in 2023. This is volume one of what will be a trilogy; the second part, A Monsoon Rising, was published in 2024. this bind represents the part of the fic that was adapted as THW and a separate bind will be made for AMR.

archive notes unfortunately, most of the tumblr links included were broken so i was unable to harvest the fanart referenced in the chapter notes. however, the author kept an extensive glossary of the star wars terms they were using based on the Wookieepedia. all of these notes and glosses have been included, as well as the AO3 metadata and summary.

Fandom: Star Wars / Reylo

the binding:

churchpaper warm white 24# paper

all interior text rendered in alegreya

typeset from a epub

rounded and backed casebinding; three-piece bradel with a french groove

made endbands over leather cord

dubletta bookcloth

[boin-de-bindery]

even if this love disappears from the world tonight by @slagpoet

A bind of a long-time favourite fic of mine - thanks so much slagpoet to agreeing to the bind! It's a beautiful, poignant read that I can't recommend enough. I was so delighted to send you a copy!

This is my first ever A6 binding, and I went Nagireo-core with the design and colour choices. The HTV layering was challenging and so the end result for both copies is a lil wonky, but I love how they mirror one another.

Wisteria are a motif in this fic, so these flowers feature on the cover as well as the typeset. Another motif is the sky and space, which I leaned into with the back cover and end papers.

An easter egg for Blue Lock nerds: the purple HTV vinyl used here is actually a chameleon variety that looks green from certain angles! Which is PERFECT because 1) purple babygirl Reo has a chameleon copycat ability in canon and 2) Nagi's often depicted with a green aura.

The typeset is one of my favourites to date - purple and grey throughout, but for each chapter the wisteria flowers fade as Nagi confronts his demons. Never disappearing, but not as dominant as they started out 🤍💜

Technical details:

A6 casebinding with linen bookcloth (purple/beige).

140 pages (6 signatures) on A4 white printer paper. The Nagi volume has purple stitching; the Reo one off-white.

Pre-printed cardstock endpapers (space themed).

Endbands are scraps of the alternating book cloth wrapped around cord and glued on.

Three different colours of heat transfer vinyl applied in layers. This was challenging, as applying heat to the overlaying elements warped some of the underlying ones. Adhesive vinyl maaaay have been a safer bet... but I had a vision and didn't want to compromise. 🥲

[greenhorn-art]

Unqualified Assistance by TheDefenestrator

Art by @lycheeluv

Fandom: 全职高手 | The King's Avatar

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Category: Gen

Words: 9,601

No one has ever doubted the identity of the “team reporter’s assistant” following Excellent Era around to their games, but he sure takes slacking to a new level. How does he get so many exclusive interviews and never publish anything?! Ye Xiu would like to protest that he has, in fact, listened to their advice and published many articles. They’re just all Glory guides.

Collection: QZGS Big Bang 2023

ABOUT THE BOOK

FORMAT: Letter quarto (trimmed), flatback casebinding, french link stitch, no tapes

FONTS: Times New Roman, Permanent Marker [via Google Fonts], KaiTi

IMAGES: Artwork by Lycheeluv

MATERIALS: 24lb Xerox Bold Digital paper (8.5"x11"), 80pt binder's board (~2mm), 30/3 size waxed linen thread, 1.9mm cording, green cardstock, Russian Green Iris bookcloth, DecoArt Crafter's Acrylic Yellow Gold, 20lb printer paper, paste wax

PROGRAMS USED: Affinity Publisher, Bookbinder-JS

.

Been feeling restless lately and thought that the focus and rush of Making A Thing would help. So I turned to my AO3 bookmarks to find a short fic to bind. I found three loosely connected by a similar theme: people interacting with Ye Xiu without knowing he's 'Ye Qiu'. I ended up doing all of them as a mini three-book collection.

[First, Second, Third]

Unqualified Assistance was the first one I typeset, using Times New Roman because in the story Ye Xiu poses as a reporter. (Times New Roman -> newspapers -> reporters). I went back in and added the Permanent Marker for the AO3 info after using it in the next book.

I also added a faint Lorem Ipsum background to the title page and first page of the story as a nod to the reporter profession.

Unqualified Assistance is another Big Bang fic. I wanted to highlight the awesome artwork, so I kept the typeset on the minimal side and didn't use any other art. Lychee's work is so lovely and expressive!

For the bookcloth I went with green because in the fic Ye Xiu is known as 'Wang's Rookie' or 'Rookie Wang'. (Time for more word association: Rookie -> greenhorn -> green, and Wang -> Wang Jiexi -> Tiny Herb -> green).

For the endpapers I used cardstock in a colour matching the bookcloth cover. No artwork or decorative paper here, just colour coordination that I can carry throughout the set.

On a whim, I trimmed the textbooks and painted the edges gold. This, I think, was the last step that really made the books a set.

With some finishing touches in the form of endbands and labels, it was done. The faux endbands were made by wrapping bookcloth around a core (in this case, leather cording). The paper label on the front cover was printed on regular ol' printer paper (20lb) treated with a paste wax (wax & mineral spirits/turpentine mix). In the future I'll use 24lb paper, because the 20lb turned slightly translucent after waxing.

[ps-froggie]

One of my goals for this year is to do bookbindings in different styles other than my usual sewn-board or casebinding so when I run a fanbinding panel next year I can say from personal experience the pros and cons of different bindings and have examples of different techniques. But it's hard to do other bindings. Not because they're technically difficult (usually) but because casebindings and sewn-board bindings feel more thematically neutral to me. I know its not the case, but when I think about doing a coptic binding or a stab binding there's this voice in the back of my mind going "hm, but does the exposed spine and visible stitching contribute to the theme of the book?"

Something to work on I suppose.

[spockandawe]

Two books to share today! One is a cute little notebook, done as a text case for the k118 binding style. It's a historical style that isn't common, but, spoilers, I'm in LOVE. Apparently you can do this with an oxford hollow, but I didn't! Without the hollow, it gives you a tight back, which usually makes books kind of stiff (casebindings and modern hardcover books usually incorporate some kind of breakaway spine), but this opens ALL the way. This was done with scrap offcuts for paper and boards, and was also a test for this printed leather, but I had a lovely time with it!

[puff-cat]

Of course!! This is casebinding, yes! I got a kit years ago to make a bound sketchbook, but instead of using blank pages I swapped them out for my formatted fic. The pages were printed with an inkjet printer on standard size paper, and hand trimmed to fit the dimensions of the book! The book is about 10.75” by 7.125”.

I used Word and PDF Booklet for formatting and printing respectively to allow the pages to be compiled and sewn as signatures. So you don’t need a fancy print shop unless you want super professional quality.

I def got a lot of tips from the @renegadeguild! So if you wanna get into bookbinding check them out.

I made some goofs with this project that’ll help make my next one even better looking, but it was fun nonetheless!

Finished my first ever bookbinding project! It feels so awesome to have a hard copy of my own writing! Despite me probably being the only person to ever see this thing, this edition includes a bonus fic (while I’ll post eventually) as well as a character guide in the back!

Formatting the print was the hardest part of this project as the book has dimensions that are a little odd.

It makes me wanna do more of this hehe

[zhalfirin]

Harry Potter Anthology

including: Tell yourself it’s not the end by sk8terboi_npc Let it bloom by bubble-gumhead Admissions (in the dead of night) by kryptidfox

materials used

case: bindersboard (1,5mm) iris bookcloth lokta paper (decoration)

inner book lokta paper (endpapers) mulberry paper silk (extended endpaper-signature) Schleipen Fly 05 (115g/m²) (book body) button hole silk (endbands)

see more pictures of the process on my sideblog

[three--rings]

One of the largest projects I've been working on is this typeset and book version of 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, one of my very favorite video games. (Which later became the first game in the Zero Escape franchise.)

The game is a visual novel and escape room game combo with multiple routes and endings leading to a true ending. So this version is structured like a Choose-your-own-Adventure book where you flip to different pages depending on your choices.

I also made it possible to skip all the less linear escape/puzzle sequences because they don't read very cohesively. But they do contain a lot of funny or revealing lines so I didn't want to eliminate them entirely.

I should also mention one of the reasons for doing this is that I wanted to preserve the original text of the game from the Nintendo DS version from 2010. When it was remastered/ported to PC and Switch a lot of the dialogue was rewritten very much for the worse. As well as making the novel sections optional, which destroys a lot of the point and atmosphere of the game.

The book is a full leather casebind, with stenciled titles. The leather was honestly a little too thick and required a lot of paring, which is terrifying because any slip could ruin it. And the final satin finish I put on made a lot of the leather flaws look worse and more obvious, which is annoying. It was my first time doing faux raised bands on the spine, and they came out nice.

My printer decided to fuck with me while printing this one and the color alignment is off. This is my second attempt at printing it and it's better than the first but still not great. But I wasn't gonna waste so much paper again.

And no, I'm not planning on doing the sequels. I can't imagine trying to deal with VLR's 28 endings when doing 6 was this challenging and annoying. And the sequels are perfectly represented by their existing playable versions, unlike 999.

[djmarinizelarecs]

My First Hardbound Book Project (and a ton of mistakes!)

Reading fanfiction online is fun, but nothing beats having a real book in your hands. For my first project this 2022, I have decided to try my hand out at guerrilla publishing and bookbinding, so I started with my own Attack on Titan fanfics:

[watch me fall apart, watch me fall apart] - Levi x Reader

You are Light-Years Away (or: How Hange Zoe Became a Writer) - Levi x Hange

But for the Lovers - Levi x Hange

I did the basic typesetting on MS Word and bought a bookbinding kit from Etsy. The book was far from perfect--the book signatures were wrong, the stitching was terrible, my hands kept trembling when I glued on the endpapers, and I snipped too much before folding the book cloth for the cover.

Nevertheless, I'm still happy I tried this out. I will definitely be practicing more so I can print and bind fanfics of and for my friends in the fandom. I hope 2022 will be kind.

[ohmightydevviepuu]

ficbinding archive: Head Over Feet / The Love Hypothesis

the story head over feet by ever-so-reylo published 2021 as The Love Hypothesis

fandom: Star Wars / Reylo

archive notes i found the original fanart of what became the title image as well as several saved tweets, manips and moodboards highlighted by the author in their chapter notes. most importantly--the chapter notes. the author writes often about how they are finding their way through the story and include a lot of insecurities about it and thanks for the growing support. includes AO3 metadata.

the binding:

churchpaper warm white 24# paper

rounded and backed casebinding

oxford hollow spine

all interior text rendered in alegreya

dubletta bookcloth

siser HTV glitter titles

made endbands sewn over piping

[boin-de-bindery]

High in the Tower: A Kunigiri Fantasy Zine

Another zine bind! This one's quite similar in spec to my last binding, so I'll keep the yapping short.

You can check out the digital version of the zine here.

A5 casebinding with linen book cloth and metallic pink HTV cover decal.

Homemade dust jacket.

Marbled endpapers by me.

Handsewn headbands.

Printed on 140gsm recycled cartridge paper.

[greenhorn-art]

Quest Fulfilled by Invidia_Envy @alsheon

Fandom: 全职高手 | The King's Avatar

Rating: Not Rated

Category: Other

Words: 10,370

In a meet and greet event, Ye Xiu is forced to hang around despite not joining the event at all. Whilst loitering around, Ye Xiu met a fanboy and made an unlikely friendship with the kid. Accident happened and the boy can't join the meet and greet, Ye Xiu decided to take his place. The pros are all speechless, why is Ye Qiu lining up in Tyranny's booth?

ABOUT THE BOOK

FORMAT: Letter quarto (trimmed), flatback casebinding, french link stitch, no tapes

FONTS: Times New Roman, Permanent Marker [via Google Fonts], KaiTi, Roboto [via Google Fonts], Arty Signature [via Font Space]

MATERIALS: 24lb Xerox Bold Digital paper (8.5"x11"), 80pt binder's board (~2mm), 30/3 size waxed linen thread, 1.9mm cording, yellow cardstock, Verona bookcloth: Hot Toffee, DecoArt Crafter's Acrylic Yellow Gold, 20lb printer paper, paste wax

PROGRAMS USED: Affinity Publisher, Bookbinder-JS

.

Quest Fulfilled! This was a sweet little fic, and it's been on the list in the back of my mind for a while. Now it's book 3 of 3 of my mini 'they didn't know he was Ye Qiu' collection.

[First, Second, Third]

Set in Times New Roman, with Permanent Marker on the AO3 info page, and with Chinese characters in KaiTi, to match with the other two books.

Because the main story is about Ye Xiu getting the pros' autographs for a sickly boy, I styled the author's name like a signature. Arty Signature is nice and messy, while still legible.

I chose a golden yellow bookcloth because yellow is a happy, optimistic colour, and gold is precious — Little Yan brings home stories and a trove of signed merch for his sick brothers, including exclusive autographs from the elusive God Ye Qiu! I was also thinking of autographs being done with a gold marker.

The endpapers are yellow cardstock, continuing with the bookcloth-endpaper colour coordination of the set.

I used my book plough to trim the textblock, then painted the edges with gold acrylic paint. The gold felt especially fitting for this book.

For all that I curse while doing it, sewing the endbands is actually one of my favourite parts of the book making process, so this collection was my first time making faux endbands. The books are so thin that sewing would be a pain.

The same paste wax applied to the paper label is the same that I used on my bind of Prince of Shadows, Lord of Thieves. Made from wax and turpentine and/or mineral spirits, but ratio and specifics unknown.

[jueru2003]

Picked up bookbinding as a hobby and have really enjoyed binding my first three books! The first book I made (the black one) is the awesome Witcher fic by @underwaterattribute (Seriously, read it, its great!), the second one is Emigre by IndignantLemur my favourite Star Trek fic (Unfinished but I am still hoping for an update) and the last one is Stargate Brotherhood by @esamastation.

[spockandawe]

Hello! I am a novice/hobbyist bookbinder; currently I'm making sketchbooks, but eventually I'd like to bind some fanfic so I can have a hard copy! Your work is awesome! 2 questions: how do you trim your text blocks? (If it's a guillotine, do you have a recommendation?) And do you have any links to tutorials for how to do the k118 binding? I looked up the binding on google and ended up here, hence my asking! (Yeah that's more like 3 questions but oh well! Thanks!)

Ahhh, yes! I do use a guillotine. My model is vevor, but that actual listing is gone now. It's pretty close to this amazon model, it's definitely more POWERFUL than the simple lever ones you sometimes see in craft spaces. Mine handles up to 500ish pages without trouble, and past that, I've tried chisel trimming (without the right press to hold it, i got a bloody outcome and a mangled book) and using a handheld orbital sander (slow and VERY messy, but works)

I do not have a better tutorial for k118 at hand, apologies. I went from the descriptions of the construction that you can find at the top of search results, then used the tightbacked leather covering methods discussed by das bookbinding in his videos. I'm hoping to maybe make a tutorial of some kind soon, because it always makes me sad when I can't answer yes to this question, so one may be forthcoming!

However, especially if you're new to bookbinding, I'd definitely recommend other styles like casebinding or coptic binding first, and getting comfortable with how leather handles on something like a bog-standard case before trying a tightbacked style. I didnt, my first attempts at leatherwork weren't k118, but tightbacked binding with laced on boards, and the learning curve was BRUTAL, it was the closest I've gotten to being completely discouraged away from a bookbinding skill. Whether or not you do a leather k118, you're going to be wrapping a a sheet of material where one side is covered in paste around a three dimensional object, manipulating it to do the turn-ins, and trying not to get adhesive on the pretty side of the covering material

It's the easiest tightbacked style I've tried so far and i love it! I think it is very attainable. I just also don't want people to get discouraged away from the hobby because this particular style was too hard to figure out. I think it's a little reductive to say 'people shouldn't try this style until they can understand it from the vague descriptions,' which is why I want to write a tutorial, but I also think it's important to level up some other skills first before tackling this one!