eggs, books & penguins

For this slipcase, I made my own bookcloth by printing on 185gsm cotton canva and use heat n bond + tissue paper to back it with paper. I will make a separate tutorial on how I set up my files for wrap cover and then get my stuff printed.

Make sure that your cloth is enough to fully wrap around the slipcase, and has enough excess to cut out pieces for the top bottom part.

I start by gluing down one side to the cloth. Make sure there is enough excess fabric to fold the cloth over the board into the inside of the case

and then apply glue the cloth to the spine, and then over on the other side. Make sure to go over the cloth with your bone folder to make sure it is properly sticking to the boards, and then wait for the glue to dry.

After that, it's time to start trimming off the excess cloth.

in DAS video tutorial, he shows you how to trim cloth for the top and bottom pieces in a way that glues together seamless and has no cloth overlapping each other. I don't do that because that is too much precise measurement for me and I don't mind the overlapping too much.

along cloth of the long edge, I use a pencil to draw a square of the same thickness as the board (2.5mm)

I do this so that when I fold the cloth other, it doesn't get scrunched up in the corner. Especially with my DIY cloth, the material is thicker than normal purchased bookcloth, I do this. Sometimes I'm lazy and skip this step when I make a bookcloth with book cloth that I purchased

I measure out the center point of the long edge and glue the ribbon to the paper-backed side of the cloth. It's admittedly not the most secure method, as the constant pulling on it over time could make the cloth detach from the board. It's probably better to have the ribbon be put inside the board, buuuut I have not tried that out myself yet

side note make sure you replace the blade tip regularly lol

I glue down the cloth on the top and bottom part like this:

The next step is cuttig out cloth pieces to glue to the top and bottom part of the slipcase to cover up the seams. This is the part where I kind of just skip the measuring. I place the slipcase on the cloth and then use a pencil to trace the outline with a pencil. However, when I cut the piece I don't cut it exactly along the pencil line, I move the ruler 1-2mm to the inside along the long edge on both sides and then cut it.

The reason I do this is that I don't want the top/bottom pieces to be the exact width on the slipcase, rather it's few mm shorter (see picture). and also make sure you have excess flaps to turn it over and glue it to the inside of the case

trim the excess flap and then glue it to the inside of the case. Make sure to go over with the bone folder to press the cloth down properly.

and with that, you've made a slipcase for your book!

So the very first thing you should do is measure your book and write it down on paper. Make sure you are measuring from different spots, as book binding is a manual process and sometimes the measurement can vary by 1-2mm. Write down the biggest measurement you get

I write down the measurements for the TOP/BOTTOM and SPINE piece, and add ~3-4mm. This is to account for the inside paper lining thickness and bookcloth when you fold it over the edge.

Adding too many extra mm could make the slipcase too loose and your book will slip out very easily, and making it too tight means you can't put the book in without having to use force and risk damaging the book and slipcase. My slipcases do tend to end a wee bit on the snug side, still easy to push in but need to shake a few times to get the book out, so I usually add a ribbon to the case to make it easier to remove the book.

For this book, my measurements are

SPINE: Length: 210mm+3 = 213mm Width: 32mm+3 = 35mm

TOP/BOTTOM: Length: 137mm+3 = 140mm

Width: 35mm, same as the SPINE piece

DAS measures all the pieces at once. For the FRONT and BACK pieces, you'll have to account in the board thickness into the measurement too, so the math is something like

board thickness*2 + SPINE Length

and the width is 140mm (same as TOP/BOTTOM Length)

BUT, I am bad at math. I had to redo the FRONT and BACK pieces for slipcases soooo many times now I just assemble the SPINE - TOP - BOTTOM pieces first, measure the total from there and then cut the FRONT and BACK. If you hate cutting, and you're more confident in your measurement and math you can also cut the front and back piece at this stage

Another important thing to keep in mind is the grain direction of the board, when you're cutting the pieces the grain direction should be running like this:

Once the pieces are cut, I glue them onto the inside paper lining. Make sure that here the grain direction is also running the same as the board pieces:

After that is done and I have cut the pieces from the paper, I start assembling it:

Make sure that the SPINE piece is sandwiched between the TOP/BOTTOM pieces. A cleaner visual of what I mean by that:

I use the following tools to keep boards in place while the glue is drying:

Magnetic corner clamp, 90°Corner clamp with guide groovesCorner clamp, 90°

Once that done, I note down the measurements for the FRONT/BACK pieces:

As I mentioned before, the formula for the FRONT/BACK Length is

board thickness*2 + SPINE Length

my boards are 2.5mm thick my SPINE length is 213mm so that means 2.5mm*2 + 213mm = 218mm (which is also the measurement my ruler is giving me yay me)

the width for the FRONT/BACK is 140mm (same as TOP/BOTTOM Length)

Once again, make sure the grain direction of your board is correct, glue the inside paper lining to the board

aaaand it's assmebling time!

I like to use my 3kg coin box as a weight for pressing the board pieces down lmfao

After the glue is dry, your slipcase should look like this: