I made my first case binding journal! I loved how it turned out. Here’s details on how I made it.
Materials
- 30 sheets 8.5×11″ paper (folded into halfs)
- Awl, needle, thread
- PVA glue
- Ribbon
- Cheese cloth
- Small cloth with thicker thread for the head & tail bands.
- 2mm Binder Board/Chipboard
- Vinyl sticker paper with matte laminate for the front & back covers.
Making the Inside Pages / Signatures
Making the Signatures:
I took 30 sheets of 28lb text blank paper, taking 5 sheets at a time and folding them in half, resulting in 10 pages per signature, with 6 signatures total.
Stitching the paper together:
Next punch holes on the fold of the paper for the stitching, using a combination of french link and kettle stitch. The length of the string to use is the length of the spine x #ofsignatures. Here’s the measurement for the location of the holes. Then cover the stitched up spine with 2 layers of PVA glue, waiting about 20min in between coating. Make sure to press the signatures together during the gluing, either with clamps or weights.
Here’s a picture I found on the web of how the french link and kettle stitch looks like:
Adding the End Papers
Take two pieces of thicker paper or decorative paper and fold them in half. Then glue the folded edge (about quarter of a inch) to the front and back of the paper block.
Adding the Head & Tail bands, ribbon, and cheese cloth:
Next was creating the head & tail bands. I used a thicker thread plus a small piece of cloth to create these. After that glue on the tail band (size of spine width and length ending just before the 1st stitch), then glue on the ribbon at the head end of the spine (about halfway down the spine), and then over it glue on the head band. After that glue the cheese cloth onto the spine, with about 1inch of cheese cloth on the front and back. With that the text block portion is finished!
Making the Book Cover
Next is creating the binders board/chipboard (2mm thickness) in the correct size. My text block is 5.5×8.5 inch, so adding in 1/4 inch to the length resulted in 5.5×8.75 inch for the board. Then for the spine, it’s the spine width plus 1 board thickness, so it turned out to be 1/2 inch in my case. So I’ll need 2 pieces of 5.5×8.75 inch board, and 1 piece .5×8.75 inch board.
Making the book covering:
For the book covering, I ended up using vinyl sticker paper (8.5×11), printing on it the art that I had drawn. I printed 3 sheets, one for the front cover, one for the back, and one for the spine area. Then I laminated them with Oraguard 210 matte UV laminate. Using a cold laminator machine really helped with the laminate sticking on to the paper correctly, it was able to get rid of all the bubbles.
If you want to use cloth for the cover, you’ll need to use a heat-n-bond or wheat paste to stick the cloth to a lightweight paper (like Unryu tissue paper), to create a paper backing for the cloth.
Next is applying the sticker papers to the 2 binders board/chipboard to make the front and back cover. Here’s the finished cover boards along with the text block:
Putting the covers together:
Stick in the middle the .5×8.75 inch spine board onto the sticker paper that’s going to wrap around the spine, with about 1.25 inch on each side. Then stick on the front and back cover boards about .25 inch away from the spine board. Use a bone folder to score the 2 gaps that’s in between. Here’s what it ends up looking like:
Final Step
The last step is attaching the text block to the book cover. Put the text block into the book cover and take note of where the edge of the end paper fall on the inside book cover. Then apply glue to the end papers and stick it onto the book cover. Press the book together either with clamps or weights for 24hours to let the glue settle in permanently. Then that’s it!
