Progress in bookbinding!
Jan. 23rd, 2021 03:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaI finalized the layout of the book in LaTeX (thanks for your typesetting expertise and opinions, jesse_the_k! ♥). Then I rearranged it into A4 signatures for printing. Annoyingly, I had 387 pages of book, which meant that whether I used five A4 pages per signature (= 400 pages of book), or six (= 408 pages of book), I would end up with quite a lot of white pages at the end. I went with five.
I ordered my bookbinding tools and supplies from Shepherd's, which store I can much recommend--they were prompt to reply to questions and prompt to send my package, which arrived within a few days. Just a week before Brexit would have made me pay customs on it, in fact! (As an aside: I pretty frequently order books from the UK, and will need more bookbinding supplies in future. Arrgh, Brexit. Sorry, I know you actual British people have magnitudes more trouble with it, mine is just minor annoyance.)
Next step, print book (at work...). I used this paper, which I found very nice! Then fold the signatures and punch holes for the sewing, here they are after that (see photo under cut). By the way, the method I follow is partly fromarmoredsuperheavy's instructions and partly from various youtubers. The instructions in the document say to open the signature face-down and then punch through with the awl, but I quickly switched to doing it from the other side (with a template to show me where the holes should go). The reason is that the side where the awl goes in looks much neater than the side where it goes out, and I want the neat side to be the one which will be visible later. You can see the difference in the photo.
Next up, sewing on tapes. You're supposed to have a frame to hold the tapes, but I didn't feel it was difficult to manage without it. Not actually sure what coating the thread with beeswax contributes? But beeswax smells very nice, so why not.
Here's the result after sewing, both from the spine and from inside the book.
So far the most time-consuming thing has been the typesetting, because there were various LaTeX problems I ran into that don't come up when typesetting math articles. But now that I've solved those, typesetting should be much easier in future.
I haven't decided if I should attempt rounding and backing or just skip the step as many people seem to be doing. I mean, I'm not sure I could do it properly, because I don't have a means to screw the book into position while I bang at it with a hammer. Hmm.
jesse_the_k! ♥). Then I rearranged it into A4 signatures for printing. Annoyingly, I had 387 pages of book, which meant that whether I used five A4 pages per signature (= 400 pages of book), or six (= 408 pages of book), I would end up with quite a lot of white pages at the end. I went with five. I ordered my bookbinding tools and supplies from Shepherd's, which store I can much recommend--they were prompt to reply to questions and prompt to send my package, which arrived within a few days. Just a week before Brexit would have made me pay customs on it, in fact! (As an aside: I pretty frequently order books from the UK, and will need more bookbinding supplies in future. Arrgh, Brexit. Sorry, I know you actual British people have magnitudes more trouble with it, mine is just minor annoyance.)
Next step, print book (at work...). I used this paper, which I found very nice! Then fold the signatures and punch holes for the sewing, here they are after that (see photo under cut). By the way, the method I follow is partly from
armoredsuperheavy's instructions and partly from various youtubers. The instructions in the document say to open the signature face-down and then punch through with the awl, but I quickly switched to doing it from the other side (with a template to show me where the holes should go). The reason is that the side where the awl goes in looks much neater than the side where it goes out, and I want the neat side to be the one which will be visible later. You can see the difference in the photo. Next up, sewing on tapes. You're supposed to have a frame to hold the tapes, but I didn't feel it was difficult to manage without it. Not actually sure what coating the thread with beeswax contributes? But beeswax smells very nice, so why not.
Here's the result after sewing, both from the spine and from inside the book.
So far the most time-consuming thing has been the typesetting, because there were various LaTeX problems I ran into that don't come up when typesetting math articles. But now that I've solved those, typesetting should be much easier in future.
I haven't decided if I should attempt rounding and backing or just skip the step as many people seem to be doing. I mean, I'm not sure I could do it properly, because I don't have a means to screw the book into position while I bang at it with a hammer. Hmm.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-28 09:09 pm (UTC)Yes, there's a link in the main post to the guide I've used, plus there's lots of youtube videos. I'll post photos of the end result soon. : )
(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-29 09:05 pm (UTC)