Progress(?) in bookbinding

[luzula]

I have now made five books. I've never actually made the same mistake twice, but the problem is, I keep making new mistakes! Also I never quite get the hang of glueing the endpaper to the board, so there are always wrinkles. /o\ My favorite part is sewing the signatures together, because you don't make mistakes doing that.

Things I resolved to do differently after book one:
- Punch through the signatures with the awl from the inside, not the outside.
- Not make the spine quite so rounded.
- Shape the bit of thinner cardboard that goes against the spine into a rounded shape before I glue it to the cloth (much harder to do afterwards!)
- Make the boards for the front and back slightly less wide.
- Get more practice glueing the end papers on.

Yep, I've got the hang of all those things now (well, except for the last one).

New mistakes made in subsequent books (I won't make these again, but I'm sure there will be more):
- Forget to keep a sheet of paper between the endpaper and the book pages while I paint glue on the endpaper, so that there are bits of glue caught on the edges of the book pages.
- Not check for and smooth out the small bubbles that can form when you glue the cloth onto the board.
- Work so much on smoothing out the wrinkles on the endpaper that my fingers make smudges on it (from the dye in the cloth, which I apparently touched with not-entirely-dry fingers).
- This one was the worst, because it ruined the shape of the book: be inattentive when I glue the case on, so that the side of it close to the spine is too far in and the pages actually stick out a little beyond the case. /o\

When I watch people glueing the endpaper on Youtube, it all looks so easy? I mean, many of them just close the case down--but when I tried that, there were wrinkles! What I do now is to try to smooth it on, but it never goes entirely well. The basic problem is that the wet glue makes the paper expand and you can't fit it into the space it ought to occupy, which causes wrinkles. Of course, it dries again, but. Arrrrgh.

Comments

[regshoe]

These little details of book construction are all so fascinating... Anyway, I'm glad you're making progress and working out how to fix mistakes, and I wish you luck in figuring out a way to sort out this endpaper problem!

[luzula]

Actually I think I may have FIGURED OUT the endpaper technique! Making this post prompted me to go back to those Youtube videos, and try that method again. And actually the results were much better. I think the problem of trying to smooth it on by hand is that handling the paper in any way deforms it, since it's so soft/wet with glue, and increases the chance of wrinkles.

[regshoe]

Hooray! \o/ Hopefully that works consistently in future :D

[chestnut_pod]

All these little details are so cool. The interactions between all the different kinds of material seem so complex.

Best of luck with the endpapers specifically, and with your self-apprenticeship in bookmaking in general!

[luzula]

Thanks! Honestly every time I glue something it is a little bit nerve-racking, because I can't undo it if I screw up. And the material is expensive enough (well, it needn't be, but I can't resist using expensive bookbinding paper instead of settling for ordinary white office paper) that I can't just start over.

But as I said in the comment above, I may be getting the hang of the endpapers!

[mific]

I'm impressed by your patience! I'm sure your technique with the end papers will improve with practice.

[china_shop]

This is all so cool! I hope your next experiment in endpapers is a great success! *\o/*

[luzula]

I'm so relieved about the endpapers--as I said in the comments above, I think I've got it working now! Or much better, at least. : D

[luzula]

As I said in comments above, I've got it working much better now! \o/ I went back to the first technique, which for some reason didn't work for me the first time.

[jesse_the_k]

I admire your willingness to just try, damn it.

[luzula]

Well, that's how you learn! But every time I glue something, it's a little bit scary...