#perfect binding

The idea is very simple, instead of just applying glue to a stack of paper, said stack is fanned and glue is applied on both sides so there’s not only the glue sitting on top of the very narrow edge of the paper sheets to connect them but als on a tiny strip between the sheets. 

Gluing just the edge is fine for simple tear-off note pads, but it’s not durable enough to make a book. There are constructions made of metal for an easy and quick double fan binding. But actually all that’s needed for a straight backed perfect binding is something to clamp down the fore edge securely so the spine can be fanned to both sides without twisting. 

I prepared some inner books for the covers with exchangeable inner books I made a while back. The inner books are going to be straight backed and about 1cm thick. so I decided to bind the all at once with waste papers to make partitions.

I saw to it that the spine side of the paper is flush (the fore edge is not that important just now, because I’m going to trim any unevenness away later) I know those books will be heavily used, so I decided to increase the surface  to which the glue can hold on to, even more and roughened up the edge by cutting into it with a knife.

Then I fan to one side and add glue, 

Fan to the other side and add more glue. It’s perfectly normal that the sheets already start sticking together.

Straighten back up so the spine is straight again and add some mull to give it more support.

This is one of the few moments I use something against it’s grain/ stretch direction. I don’t want that mull to stretch, I want it to hold firm and support the binding. so the singe thread goes with parallel to the spine and the three threads help to support it. 

The last thing to do is getting the paper out of it’s clamp and setting on between silicon paper (or whatever else that won’t stick to the paper) and let it dry out. It’s a bit tricky to keep that spine at a 90° angle I usually check that a few times and also, the mull tends to bulge as soon as the paper is weighed down, so that needs to be worked in again.

This time I’m re-binding a perfect bound book for a friend. Usually I wouldn’t take a rather new book apart. Here the binding had broken in a couple of places and glue seeped deep between the pages in others. It already showed where the pages would take damage within a few readings.

So first I got rid of the cover and there was still a thick and sticky layer of glue on the spine.

I started out with the first page that came off easily. The following pages were getting harder and harder to get off though. So what I do is using my bone folder, or sometimes the back my knife (the bone folder is the safe option and less likely to damage the pages though), to push the glue firmly down and away from the pages.

Plucking a book like this can take a moment depending on how sound the binding is in general. With this book I had to repeat pushing down the glue every 2-3 pages. A good moment to do that is, when the pages are getting harder to pull off. So before tearing a page it’s better to do another round of pushing the glue down so it looks like this again. (You can actually see the roughed up spine side being exposed on the top page.

In the end there’s often the layer of glue with some paper fibers still sticking to out and the text block, that will still have some residue glue on the pages.

I bound multiple inner books at once in a double fan binding.  To separate them after binding I added two sheets of waste paper to mark where to divide them.

After finishing an separating the different notebooks, those waste papers between the books and on top and bottom of the whole binding are torn off. The ones on top and bottom are just to keep the actual book body doesn’t get dirty or has any excess glue on it and tear away easy enough despite the double fan binding.

Those notebooks would not stay well in a case because the paper is not stiff enough to actually keep them in place inside the pockets, so they get card stock covers to add some sturdiness. I’m still not sure which type of adding the card stock I like best. I did a version where two sheets of cars stock are channeled and glued to the book body and the strip of cloth covers spine and cardboard from channel to channel and I did a version with a full card stock cover with four channels.

In this case I just want the area between the two outer channels covered with glue

I find the easiest way to get just a specific area covered, is by covering the area that shouldn’t get any glue like this.

Now I insert the inner book... 

... and leave them between boards and weighed down to dry.  ( here you can see I messed up the channels and accidentally did one at the spine in the ‘wrong’ direction. Often it’s more of a ‘what do you believe is right’ matter in what direction a channel should show, but in this case I want the material at the spine corner pressed outwards so the inner book sits neatly in the case)

Once dry they I cut them to size so they will fit snugly into their cases without too much room to wiggle around. I had only the height the same as the glued inner book an the front and back cover protruding about 5mm when I channeled the cover. Mostly because that way I get away with being a bit less accurate and the front is the edge I can easily trim.