DIY Book Binding
diybookbinding.com
diybookbinding.com
Extremely relaxing, can get in the zone and work for hours, every book is a different puzzle, and the results are very satisfying.
Here's some of my work: https://photos.app.goo.gl/1oNxCfKJp4k6yjoZ9
Regardless, it seems that there is a significant difference of materials and techniques for repairing a 90 year old book versus creating a brand new book. Therefore, I found that a GP comment regarding restoring books might be a good place to inquire about resources. I did actually skim through the OP link before posting my question, and I didn't find anything that specified rebinding an old book.
by now i expect there to be some tutorials online.
the additional challenge you have with repair is that you want to preserve as much as you can from the original. if this is a precious book i would practice on a few throwaway books first.
It was so nice to have it during university. I would use it for printing out papers as A5 "magazines" that I would bind myself. Very satisfying.
I never found anything quite like it for Windows
Ages ago, I created an n-up imposition engine for bookwork. Also adjusted pages for creep and shift. And very basic printer marks.
It was just a simple UI form, not a graphical app (Illustrator, QuarkXpress, Preps). It'd output both a Preps template (for imposition) and a JDF with the fold and binding specs. Though the plan was to impose PDFs natively.
Alas, we were bought (by Creo), and my work was abandoned, then lost. Billion dollar company had no interest in a $50 utility (or InDesign plugin).
FWIW, Rohan Holt recreated the bookwork engine for his Metrix product. So my algorithmic innovation wasn't lost completely. Metrix is a professional general purpose tool, whereas mine was just for bookwork.
With the shift from litho to digital printing, on top of the decline of print work industry, I've assumed there's no commercial market.
But maybe with nostalgia, there's now makers and tinkerers who'd use a simple tool.
Thoughts?
[0] my bread is exquisite though!
So I’m glad you mentioned it :). I’ll check it out for sure as I’ve also spent some time making Sourdoughs. I generally prefer instant yeasts for their agility. You can really experiment with them since the opportunity cost is so low. I.e. if you mess up a sourdough you’ve lost like 12-24 hours of work, vs 2.5 hours.
If you want it as a reference that gets thrown around, you could do a simple saddle stitch. This is commonly used for zines. But this doesn't work well if there are over 30* or so pages as it gets too thick. https://youtu.be/PncuvEajyWI
If you want it looking a little bit better with a hard cover, check out this link. It is still the same basic saddle stitch, but then adds a cover and a lot of finishing work. https://youtu.be/BfW0OiAFLkU
If it's longer than 30 or so pages, you will probably need multiple signatures. A signature is basically 30 pages stitched together and then the signatures are stitched together. There are a ton of options at this point. You could even get into the non-stitched bindings that just use glue, like a drum leaf. I recommend the videos at https://www.youtube.com/@DASBookbinding for a lot of options.
If you want something beautiful and you don't want to make it yourself, I'd recommend finding a local book artist who can make it for you. Or one online. Call you local art centers and ask around.
* The actual number is dependent on the the paper, the method, the tools available, etc. But 30 isn't a bad average.
I ordered a physical copy of the classic "Alice" DB book some months back: http://webdam.inria.fr/Alice/ ; this is increasingly very hard to find in print, and copies are very expensive. I paid good money for it. It shipped all the way from Germany, took weeks. And when it got here the whole spine was broken and it was basically almost completely unbound.
I have thought about taking it somewhere to get it repaired, but also about just trying my hand at rebinding it myself (not that I need any more hobbies).
If I were making DIY children’s books meant to be durable I’d probably print folio on Tyvek printer paper and use some suitably durable thread to sew a booklet binding.
Spent many hours assembling books with those. Print runs of 500 to 2000.