So remember that book I started on Tuesday? Because I'm me, when I went to continue working on it yesterday, I instead started a whole new book. I decided that I wanted to print and bind a copy of LOK. I'll probably work on both LOK and my blank book in parallel, with slightly different constructions, to see what I like best.
After much finagling, I figured out how to arrange the pages so that I could print them 4-up double-sided (on my printer with no duplex feature, so that was fun). I wanted to do 4-up instead of 2-up for two reasons: first, it's a fun small-size book, but second, because the grain of the paper is important in bookmaking. Machine-made paper has a grain that means that the paper is more flexible in one direction than the other. You want the grain to be aligned with the binding so that the pages turn easily. On typical copy paper, the grain runs up and down, so if you print two pages per sheet rotated 90 degrees, you'll end up with the grain running "the wrong way".
Anyway.
I got the sheets printed, arranged in six 16-page signatures and one 12-page signature. I cut them, folded them, stacked them, and trimmed them, same as the blank book from the day before, except this time I had to keep double-checking to make sure I had all the pages in the right order. The PDF was laid out for A4 paper and I was printing on letter paper, so I ended up with a wide margin on the right, which I trimmed off.
The next step was punching holes for the sewing. I made a template with a scrap sheet of paper, marked off where I wanted holes, and used it to guide me as I used a pushpin and an old phone book (a phone book is...oh, never mind) to poke matching holes in all my signatures. Two important points here:
- The template is marked to show which end is the top. Even though it's meant to be symmetrical, it probably isn't quite, and if it gets used upside-down for some signatures the holes won't align as well.
- Along the same lines, when I line it up with the signatures, I always lined it up at the top end of the signature, so that if some of the signatures are a slightly different height than the template, the top edge of the text block will be flatter, and any "raggediness" will be on the bottom. Is top better than bottom? I don't know, I just had to pick one!
There were a couple hiccups along the way (holes missing the fold and needing to be re-punched) but I got them all done, and then went through all the holes again with the needle I was going to use for sewing, so that I knew they were all fully punched and big enough for the needle.
Up until now, I was in familiar territory, but sewing on tapes is new to me! I grabbed some sewing thread and some ribbon, and got to work. (Are these the "right" materials to use? Probably not! But this isn't an archival-quality book, it'll be fine.)
It didn't go well.
I had a bit of confusion at first with getting all the signatures right-side-up and in the right order (not something I normally have to worry about when making a blank book), but that was easily sorted out. There were two problems that weren't as easily fixable, though.
The first problem was: I couldn't keep the thread taut, and so the thread didn't hold tightly onto the ribbon. I think this is because as I was moving the ribbon out of my way for sewing, it would pull down on the thread, loosening it. This isn't going to hold the book together.
The second problem was: After my fourth signature, when making the kettle stitch at the end, I messed up the knot and ended up tying a length of thread in a loop.
Oh well, this is how we learn, right? I'll cut the thread and pull it all out and try again another day!
