Here are the tools for this part:

1. A punching cradle. I bought mine for about $20, but you can make your own

2. An awl. You may be able to use nails or even thumb tacks (assuming your thread is fine enough to go through those holes), but this is a fairly cheap tool to buy.

3. A ruler

Different methods of spine sewing will require different distributions of holes. You are going to want to choose what kind of stitching you are going to do before punching holes into your signatures!

For this book, I am going to be sewing over ribbons, so I need one hole about an inch from each end, and three pairs of holes distributed evenly along the remainder. These pairs need to be wide enough apart for my ribbon (1/2” cotton ribbons).

Unfortunately, my commercial punching cradle’s holes are all 1cm apart — too small for my ribbon. This would not have been a problem if I made my own and used punching cards, but we will make do with what we have.

I did some math and figured out that, since my signatures are actually somewhat longer than the punching cradle, I could punch the signature once in these 4 holes and then FLIP IT OVER to make the other four punches (which would give me my 1/2” gaps).

Step 1: lay the signature into the cradle. Make sure that the edges of the paper are flush against the wood, and that all of the pages are firmly lined up.

Step 2: lay the punching guide on top of the paper, pressing the paper firmly down into the trench.

Step 3: punch the holes! I’ve marked the ones I am going to use so I don’t mess this step up.

Here are the first four holes punched. I’ll get the full pattern once I flipped the signature around and do it again.

If you do this step right, all of the holes should line neatly up when you lay the signatures on top of each other.

Back when I was glueing the spine, I told you all that I was going to be following bitter melon bindery’s tutorial for hard case binding. And I *was* — from memory. I’d done the spine part four times before, and was confident that I would remember all of the steps. Which I *did*!

Save one.

After the first coat of glue, bitter melon takes her textblock out and trims it before putting it back in the press to add the bookmark, endbands and spine stiffener. Why was it important to trim it at that point, and not later?

Because of this:

It makes no sense to trim the head and tail edges of the book *after* attaching the bands and the bookmark. Correcting the issue now would mean chopping off the endbands and reapplying them — something that I noticed after the spine had finished drying, but hoped wouldn’t matter. I was too focused on evening out the fore edge at the time to worry about the head and tail.

This isn’t too bad. In knitting, this would be roughly equivalent to frogging out a couple of rows of a blanket; annoying, yet doable. Still, it’s important to explore all of the available options before taking costly or time consuming corrective measures. So:

Option 1: decide to live with it

This is always a choice. And, if I were just making my own personal copy of this book, I might seriously consider it. This is what I chose to do after botching the casing in of Saint’s Guise.

However, I made the same mistake on the author copy of TIOADL. Call it pride, but I would rather not send out something that looks like this:

Option 2: sand the edges down

As mentioned before, I don’t own a guillotine. I *do* have quite a lot of sandpaper, however, in a variety of grits. If this was just a few mm, I might consider putting the book into my makeshift clamp and going to town.

However, I don’t have a very good ventilated area to perform the sanding operation in, and my makeshift book clamp is really not up to the job. I’ve attempted this sort of sanding once before; in my experience, the act malforms the edge (squashing it), while also filling the air with fine paper dust. I simply lack the tools and space to do this safely and achieve a nice finish through sanding.

Option 3: hack and slash

I could try (*try*) to tackle the text block with a ruler and a box cutter. Bitter melon has some tips to help with the process. However, this is a relatively thick book; I don’t own a crafting knife with a blade longer than the width of this textblock. I’m quite likely to make a hash of it (I have before!), and would *still* have to sand the edges afterwards in order to even them out. Not fun.

Which really leaves me with only one option:

Option 4: back to the guillotine

Ultimately, I don’t see much of a choice here. I’m going to have to bring these back to the UPS store and get the head and tail edges trimmed. I’ve already marked where I want the cuts to go, and have triple-checked that the new edges will be square with the front and spine using my straight edge.

My only concern is whether they (the UPS employees) will be able to chop through the spine stiffener and end bands cleanly. Guess there’s only one way to find out!

(I’m going to cut off the bookmarks first so that I can reuse the ribbon. Thankfully, I have plenty of the green endband material left to work with.)

I’ll be following along once more with this tutorial from bitter melon bindery, so be sure to check that out if any part of this is unclear.

Materials and tools for this part:

1. Book board (mine is 80pt)

2. A cereal box (more on that later)

3. Masking tape

4. A ruler

5. A boxcutter

6. A cutting mat

7. A straight edge (optional, but awesome)

Step 0: Trimming the edges

No matter how carefully you do the sewing and folding of the textblock, the fore edge will have this sort of sawtoothed appearance that I prefer to remove. I’ve tried trimming textblocks before with a ruler and a boxcutter, but honestly that method is *really hard*.

On the other hand, guillotines powerful enough to cut through almost two hundred pages of paper at once cost a chunk, and I don’t have the space to store one. So I outsource the trimming to my local print shop.

NOTE: if you go this route, be really really clear about what you want. Talk to someone. Mark your cutting lines directly onto the book. Leave a sticky note with instructions. These people can and will trim off the glued edge of your book and even rebind it as a spiral bound book if you leave any ambiguity.

Ask me how I know xD

Step 1: Measure the trimmed textblock and do some math

Following bitter melon’s recommendations, I measure the width and height of the text block, then add 1/4” to the height. This will be the size of my cover boards.

Step 2: Measure and cut the book boards and an edge gap spacer

You’ll need two cover boards. You can use the first one to measure and cut the second.

This is a good time to use your straight edge, if you have one. Cutting these things square (with true right angles) can be tricky without a solid edge to brace against. Measure twice!

For the edge gap spacer, measure and cut a 3/8” wide piece of book board at least as long as your boards are tall.

Step 3: Measure and cut a spine board

The width of the spine board is the thickness of the text block (measured at the spine) + the thickness of one of your book boards.

A note on materials

The last two books I bound had spine boards the same thickness as the cover boards. This is the method shown by bitter melon and a few of the other tutorials I have watched. However, thicker spine boards apparently have several disadvantages, including greater difficulty with seating them correctly (see below):

In comparison, look at this professionally bound book (one of the Discworld collector’s editions, for those curious):

The spine is of a notably thinner, more flexible material. Since this is also a frequently dispensed bit of advice on the bookbinding subreddit, I figured I would give it a try this time. My spines are therefore cut from a box of granola bars (the cereal boxes I had felt just a tad too flimsy to me).

Step 4: Layout

Grab some masking or washi tape. I stuck it to my sleeve a couple of times to reduce the stick before placing one of my cover boards on top. Use the edge gap spacer and a straight edge or other reference line across the top to place the spine board.

Unstick the edge gap spacer and repeat on the other side to place the second cover board.

Step 5: Test the fit!

Now we can wrap our little cover around the text block. Check that the spine doesn’t look too wide, and that there is enough space around the text block to form a slight overhang when the book is closed.

Doing so will help you catch mistakes. Mistakes like the one I have been dancing around now for a while…

… I forgot to get the head and tail edges trimmed.

…

*sigh*

Tools required for this step:

1. Book mull cloth

2. Writing implement to mark measurements

3. Scissors

4. Box cutter or crafting knife

5. PVA glue

6. A brush

7. Scrap paper or cardstock

8. Pre-made end bands (that two-tone ribbon thing)

9. Ribbon (if you are adding a bookmark)

I will be following a combination of this tutorial by Renaissance Bookbinding, and this one by bitter melon bindery.

Now, welcome to my janky-ass setup!

I don’t own a book press, but I do have two strong clamps and some boxes of sparkling water to use as solid stands. I also don’t have any actual wooden boards, so I made a couple of appropriately sized book protectors out of three layers of book board sandwiched together with masking tape.

Step 1: Glue

You’re going to need a lot more glue than what was pictured here, btw. The goal is to get a nice, even coating across all of the signatures. The book should be clamped firmly enough that the glue isn’t going to penetrate too far down between the signatures, but not so tightly that we’re deforming the spine.

Step 1.5: Trim the edges!

I forgot this step when I did this part, leading to some difficulty that I have to deal with later. If you are following along with this tutorial, now would be a good time to allow the spine to dry and remove it from the press. Trim the fore edge, the top and bottom edges, then replace the textblock in the press to continue reinforcing the spine. Bitter melon shows this process in her tutorial, if you are interested (though I outsource this part personally to a local print shop with a proper guillotine).

Step 2: Make and attach filler pieces

While the glue dries slightly, I measure the width of the spine as it is clamped, and cut long strips of scrap paper to that size. Then I measure the gaps between my ribbons and fold those strips over and over until they are approximately the same thickness as the sewing bumps (for me, this was 5 layers of paper).

I glue these lightly together and press them between waxed paper for a few minutes, before attaching them to the spine. Since the last coat of glue is still not quite dry, it doesn’t take a lot of extra glue to get these firmly in place.

Note: Renaissance Bookbinding used bits of book board for this step, but I like to reuse materials where I can. If the object is to level out the spine and make everything even with the ribbon bumps, the scrap paper does that. Just with extra steps.

Step 4: Attach bookmark

I added *another* coat of glue over the whole spine (not super thick), and then measured and cut the ribbon. I almost glued this thing to the tail of the book (the bottom), so make sure you have a way of marking/remembering which side of the book is up when you put it in your press!

Step 5: Attach head and tail bands

This is as easy as measuring and cutting pieces of pre-fabricated end bands, then attaching them to either side. The one on the top of the book is called the headband; the one on the bottom is called the tailband. Make sure that the little cord piece hangs just slightly over the lip of the spine!

Step 6: Apply the spine strengthener

Measure and cut a piece (or two) of book mull. Some binders use cheesecloth for this; Renaissance Bookbinding literally just used a tube of paper.

If using a fabric, the mull should cover the length of the spine and hang at least one (1) inch to either side of the spine; I like to overdo things and trim these down later. Lay the pieces down one at a time and apply more glue on top. You kind of just brush and mash the glue through the mull until you have an even coating over the whole thing.

Step 7: Let this dry!

Overnight is best. This will take longer to dry than you think. Once done, you can pull it out of your press and admire your handiwork. The textblock itself is now done!

Tools and supplies for this step:

1. Our perforated signatures

2. Some pre-waxed linen thread

3. A large needle (mine is apparently a “sail needle”, but it came with my awl and punching cradle so idk the exact size)

4. A couple of binder clips

5. Some 1/2” cotton tape

6. Scissors

Step 1: thread the needle and measure out some thread. I have ten signatures, so I will pull out 10 signature lengths plus 1 for good measure.

NOTE: if you want to sew your endpapers on, you will need an additional two lengths of thread! I’ve only used tipped-on papers in the past, so I forgot to leave extra thread this step xD

Step 2: grab your LAST signature (the end of the book) and start the sewing by pushing in from the rightmost hole. Leave 3-4 inches of thread at the beginning (or a full signature length plus 3-4 inches if you are going to be sewing end papers on later). The sewing itself is simple: just go back and forth through the holes, keeping things neat (but not *tight* — you don’t want to tear the paper).

Step 3: pause and push the cotton tapes through the loops you formed in the last step. This time, whenever you come to a ribbon, you are going to be pushing your needle up behind the thread that went across that ribbon in the last pass, before pushing it into the opposite hole.

Step 4: When you come to the end, you are going to slide your needle between the last two signatures that you joined, pulling up under that loop of thread (unless it is the first two signatures — in that instance, tie a simple knot with the loose end of the thread before continuing)

Step 5: Repeat until all the signatures are attached. Here you can see how I’m using the binder clips to keep the new signature steady and even with the rest of the text block as I sew.

(FWIW, I don’t recommend the smiley clips. They’re what I had, but they tend to catch on the edges of paper :/)

Important! Don’t pierce the ribbons with the thread or use gaps that are too small. You want to be able to tug these ribbons back and forth, both to even them out and also to aid in rounding the spine later, should you choose to do so.

Here we are, halfway done! You can see how I’m getting a nice crisscross pattern up each ribbon as I go. (Isn’t it *pretty*? ^_^)

And that’s it! The text block is all sewn together now and ready for glueing. The spine will compress some when I put it in the press, but this is definitely the largest book I’ve bound so far! I may end up having to round the spine before I put on the cover (which is one reason I chose to sew it together using tapes).

Of course, there are many different ways to accomplish this step — lots of different stitches and styles to choose from, all with their own advantages and disadvantages. So maybe take a look around before you commit to one. This is just the one that I know how to do.