book making: binding, sewing, gluing, etc

[stirringleaf]

does anyone make books? i am looking for tips on sewing, gluing, and where to get free and cheap supplies. i dont mind re-using other things, and would be interested to know anyones experiences with reusing old books that are going to be thrown away ( use the hard covers? the pages?)


i am about to help a friend glue covers to a book he is making. he has i think 6 or 7 signatures ( the inner contents of the book, made into 7 little booklets that stack together inside the cover) that he has stapled rather than sewn, and we are simply going to glue them into covers with some PVA that i have. (there are 50 copies) so rather than sew all the signatures to each other, they will just be glued directly into the cover. will this hold up? i did a sample one last night and it seems fine, but was wondering if it will last through being read and handled. all the bookmaking tutorials and books i have seen show sewing the signatures together before adding a cover, plus sometimes they are taped as well.

TIA

[LilithParker]

Stapled signatures won't hold up as well as sewn ones, no matter how much you glue and tape them, but, depending on how much use this book gets, it should stay together. Personally, I would sew and tape, but I'm a traditionalist.

As far as materials go, I like Volcano Arts and Dick Blick for things like PVA and tape, and tag sales or used book stores for bookboard (just watch out for warping and water damage, and make sure you can hide anything that's already been embossed).

[akmbloom]

I agree that staples won't hold together as well as sewing, and if you're just gluing the spine of the signatures into the spine of the book cover, it won't be very flexible and may crack along the spine after a while..... when i've put new signatures into old book covers I've 1) reinforced the spine of the cover (inside the cover) with strong rice paper, 2) sewn the signatures together, then used a thin coat of pva to make a book block and 3) attached the signatures to the insides of the front/back boards of the covers using end sheets or just the first and last pages of the book block.

I recommend checking out the books by Alisa Golden and Shereen laPlantz for more info about this sort of thing - I adapted some ideas from them to make my books. I think Creating Visual Journals (?) by Jason Thompson (?) also has an explanation of how to put a new book block into an old cover.

I've gotten supplies from Michael's (though they rarely have bookarts-specific supplies), smaller art stores, and online from hollander's and Dick blick - I thought my Hollanders PVA and binder's board was a pretty good deal.

[stirringleaf]

thanks you guys, i will look into alot of that stuff. we already did the books, so we will just have to cross our fingers...it was about 50 copies of a book, glued into a cardstock cover. they seem OK but he is going to be bringing them to a book fair in 2 days so he isnt about to sew them now...

however, the above info is really good, and if you dont mind me coming back here for more questions on my next project... i will probably come to ask more and troubleshoot-- i dont know anyone IRL that makes books.

i do have a book by alisa golden and i LOVE it but there are some things that you cant find out in there, like all the what-if kinds of questions, like experimenting. if you go to my website and scroll down , you can see a pic of a book i made recently using a design idea from alisa golden. do any of you have pics of your books? i would love to see!

and when i say cheap supplies i mean like , next to free, :LOL i am so broke its not even funny. but i saw a huge box of childrens encyclopediaas at goodwill the other day and i am scheming about going to get them for the boards. i have guilt about cutting up books, but feel like trying it.

sometime someone should explain to me about wheat paste used as laminate BTW. can you make your own from flour or do you have to buy the special wheat paste ? this too is from one of my bookmaking books, to coat pages with it . i havent tried it. anyone?