Duct Tape Book Binding – Cheepo Delux

The author isn't wrong about tight clamping potentially limiting glue penetration, but that's what edge preparation is for. In the books I've bound thus far, I first scored the binding edge in crosshatches with a carving tool, then brushed on a first layer of glue and pressed a strip of cotton roll gauze into it, and finally gave that a second layer of glue.

It worked pretty well; I rarely have trouble with pages coming loose or bindings cracking in the books I've made. I have a few ideas for how to further improve the result, but those will have to wait for when I find time to pick up the hobby again; lately the most I've done is quick stitched bindings for small booklets when I want to include some essay or article as a supplement in my diary.

For spines I prefer black bookbinder's tape. It looks more handsome than duct tape, and takes silver paint pen very well for titling.

When applying the glue, fan the spine end out by bending the pages out to one side, glue, then the other side, more glue, then clamp. That gives the glue more surface area to adhere to, making for a longer lasting binding.

The technique is called the double fan method, and would work fine with the rest of the techniques here.

As someone who just completed my third and fourth courses in fine leather binding, I can say with authority that this is a very quick and sensible method of making a durable binding for this level of value. As Falcolas noted, this is partway to doing a double fan method, which specifically allows for the glue penetration the author is looking for.

What the author could also do is get some board (like, say, the cardboard on the back of legal pads), clamp all that together prior to gluing, extend the spine an inch off a countertop with heavy books on the rest of the book block to hold it still, and then use a hacksaw to saw into the spine at intervals, about 1/32nd of an inch deep, crosswise to the spine. Take a piece of thread, dental floss, or fine string, and after gluing, press it into the first channel, loop back into the second, then the third, etc. Wipe excess glue and then put the duct tape over the spine, pressing it down evenly--THEN you fold the tape over the front and back at the same time, taping down the thread loops to the front and back of the board. Now you have a semi-hardcover, depending on the thickness of the boards.

Note that the duct tape adds little to the structure. You could also use a piece of cotton or linen in its place, you just have to glue it down to the front and back. This would be stronger, longer term, because PVA will hold better than duct tape adhesive over the years. If you do, cut the cloth "on the bias" meaning at 45 degrees to the weave. This prevents fraying and increases overall strength, for the forces it will encounter. If you do this, you can add another layer of PVA to the spine on top of the cloth, which increases strength.

My wife is a teacher and we created something like this as an exercise for all of her art students to make their own journals, with the final step being covering it with kraft paper. They loved it, used it for their art journals all semester, and asked to do it again at the end so they could have another.

If you get the basic assembly and gluing right, you'll be very surprised at the durability of something like this, including a lot of punishment like opening the book flat and using your hand to "break" the spine. It'll hold together.

Denim - from old trouser legs - is another good and long-lasting material for binding books. Back in the days of tractor-fed 9-pin dot matrix printers I made a number of books this way using a home-made book press, a bottle of PVA wood glue and strips of denim. These books still survive after some 35 years, the denim/PVA glue combination keeps up well without cracking or tearing.

I would suggest vacuum bagging. I've used it to fix soles to shoes and surfboard fins. You can buy the vacuum bag cheap on Amazon. I would first loosely fix the block of papers together. Add glue and tape to the binding edge then stick it in the bag, suck out the air and let atmospheric pressure fix it nicely.

I have a real soft spot for this kind of instructable, and I've done enough bookbinding to say that this one will work.

That said, let me present my decision tree for using duct tape:

   if not closet.gaffer_tape then
      if task.urgent then
         online.order(gaffer_tape)
         return closet.duct_tape or bail("ing wire")
      else
         return obtain(gaffer_tape)
      end
   else 
      return closet.gaffer_tape 
   end

When I was in my printing apprenticeship we had to sometimes bind notebooks from Makulatur. We used the same method but with other ingredients there is special book binding tape made out of linen ribbon which makes the back more sturdy and is just as cheap as good duct tape.

I have always borrowed the sewing machine to bind small books quickly. It takes about 1 minute, less messy then glue perhaps, and doesn’t need to dry.

You can tape over the stitch if you don’t like the look of it, but I personally like the texture.

2-punch hole is my favorite cheepo book binding technique.

This duct-tape thing still requires a bit of manual effort. 2-hole punch is a bit less popular (3-hole punch is everywhere), but 2-hole punch is smaller: both the binding clips and the punch itself is just more compact.

2-hole punch has two choices: the "long-side" 11.5-inch binding like a more normal book, or the "top-side" 8-inch. The standard clip works in both positions quite well.

Worth noting, this is “loose leaf” binding - every paper is individually glued to its neighbors. Books are normally bound in booklets, with two pages on each sheet of paper, which is then folded in the middle. This requires that the pages be printed in a specific order, but many publishing tools support this, it’s usually called “imposition” or simply “booklet”. These booklets are then sewn and pasted together into books, but a very quick and easy thing you can do at home is use a booklet stapler with a swinging head, like this: https://a.co/d/bYfZUjj Booklets stapled in this way can open fully flat with no risk of damaging the binding.

Edit: Typo

I was in cub/boy scouts as a kid. One of the first things I did when I got my handbooks was cover the existing binding in duct tape. I even managed to get beige tape to match the color of the boy scout one. Many of the other kids had books with pages falling out of the binding. Mine, on the other hand, held strong. About 20 years later, I still have the books in decent condition with their original duct tape bindings.

Oh man this brings backs memories! When I grew up, we had this one book with all kinds of DIY home improvement and house-building instructions I loved to leaf through. It got so much use (and I think had already been passed to my family used!) that it completely fell apart multiple times. We sort of re-bound it with a similar method involving glue and some kind of reinforced transparent adhesive film more than once!

This is brilliant. I've been planning to print and bind some old journals from the Internet Archive and other places (eg Analog Dialogue), and I've been putting it off because I couldn't bring myself to set up for more involved binding methods.

But as other comments say, I may go with the purpose-made spinetape and maybe a cardboard cover (but then I'll start procrastinating over cover design!)

Binder Clips is the correct term for the “lever clip thingies”

Is there anything like instructables but for electronics? I did electrical engineering basics years ago but never really did anything with it. I'm looking for something to play around with leds and little motors and maybe some PV cells.

Any hints?

gotta say, while a decent instructable, the completely unnecessary use of the r word near the beginning really turned me off. Almost stopped right there.

For booklets, see 360 degree staplers.

You’re welcome.

I have a stapler that will go through about 120 sheets. I'm not printing anything longer than that usually.

It's not quite as pretty as duct tape, but it's fine for me.