or: How I printed and bound a 600 page book in less than one day
Dylan McNamee
This guide is a result of following Dylan McNamee’s own: it adds in missing details (stack trimming included), and covers a few hiccups to avoid. What is here wouldn’t have been possible without his guide.
The books bound are are referred to as “perfect-bound” paperbacks: they consist of single-sheet “signatures” bound at their folds by a thick sheet of glue. The glue is the main structural element: dried bookbinding glues don’t break apart when folded; the fact that your signatures are sticking out of it when this happens is incidental. The cover at the back only spreads the stresses of opening across this sheet of glue.
When bound generously, the binding should have the thickness (rather, thinness) and durability of a “quality” paperback: something an academic press would sell for thirty dollars. It probably won’t be as rectilinear: your glue binding might form at an angle if you don't pay exacting attention to aligning the unbound stack of pages.
I don’t give a single definite method of trimming stacks of paper down to size: there is no foolproof solution that requires only access to an office supply store; there are a few neater solutions that require a hardware store. But it’s essential - it’s hard to flip through a book to get to a page when some pages more easily catch your finger than others. The possibilities I outline below require access to a print shop, or end up being a gentle introduction to the tools of the bookbinding craft. Go to that extent, anyhow, and you'll soon find the other processes in this guide become "bottlenecks".
In general, this is not an introductory guide to any depth of the bookbinding craft: a good introduction should introduce you to a set of highly refined tools of the trade, and will most likely take you as far as the construction of hardback books.
Crib proportions, measurements, and depths from books of a similar thickness. But if you’ve clamped your book down with sufficient force, a stack of 70gm paper should be as thick as an existing “quality” paperback with the same number of pages.
Other items that won’t need much planning ahead are introduced as we go along.
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Paper
- 70gm paper’s given me the most leeway; the thinner the better. At 80gm I barely had thickness to spare.
- A4 fits most paperback formats; letter-size won’t fit both margins and text without smaller-than-usual sizes.
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Imposition software
- Imposition is the process of turning a PDF (PDF for explanation’s sake) specified by consecutive pages into a PDF that lays out the pages in two-up such that they're right order when folded. (Industrial-strength imposition software does more than this, but this is the core.)
- I use Cheap Impostor on OS X: it allows fine adjustment of both the scale of the content and the margins when laid out two-to-a-page. I first separately align the page content if required: there are other tools that do this - but only this well.
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Drafting tape - in a pinch, masking tape.
- This tape should be easily peeled off from paper without leaving a mark.
- This is used to hold together sheets of signatures you’ve stacked together as you maneuver them in and out of your vise. (More on the vise below.)
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PVA glue in a nozzled bottle.
- Also sold as “wood glue” or “latex glue”. But double-check: PVA glue is, crucially, flexible when dry.
- The nozzle’s for convenience: you’ll want to lay down thin strips of glue.
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Two clamps, or two weights (at least 2kg each) to press down on your vise.
- Throughout the text I assume you have weights - clamps do a much neater job, but you're more likely to have weights.
- Don’t skip out on this: books that puff out in the middle are easy to make, but don’t open up smoothly.
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An unusually large vise built out of plastic boards. Read on on how to construct one:
- The edges of your vise will act as an exactly horizontal and straight reference: make sure your boards are perfectly aligned.
- I use two plastic cutting boards (which PVA glue won’t stick to), and drill holes for two bolts as near to the edge where binding’ll be done. These bolts are tightened with wingnuts. See below for views from front and top.
- My board is a variant of Dylan McNamee’s.
The empty vise.
FRONT TOP
+--------------------------------+
| |
+ + | XX+XX XX+XX |
| | | |
X + X X + X | |
XXX XXX | |
+--+---------------------------+--+ | |
| | | |
| (pages to go here) | | |
| | | |
+--+---------------------------+--+ | |
XXX XXX +--------------------------------+
Note the bolts placed just a few
centimetres off the binding edge.
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Clean up the PDF.
- Vertically and horizontally centre the pages; make sure they’re all the same size.
- ScanTailor automates most of this process. On OS X, find it on Homebrew.
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Impose your PDF into signatures of 1 sheet each. Pay attention to each of the margins:
- The outside margin. Leave space for your fingers - check any book for a reasonable margin width; this should be universal.
- The binding-side margin. Too thin, and you’ll exercise your wrists trying to keep the book open in order to read the left half of your pages. The thicker the book, the more of this margin tends to be obscured - and the wider it has to be. Check an existing book of the stack thickness for the right width, but remember to measure the width all the way from the binding.
- Each PDF page should correspond to two book pages; each physical sheet should correspond to four.
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Print, fold, stack, and weigh down in batches of 40 signatures each.
- Start printing at an odd-numbered page, end at an even-numbered page; use two-side printing with short-edge binding. The first batch is pages 1-39, the second 40-79, and so on.
- Fold each signature. When you’ve folded a sheet, apply a finger from top to bottom - thinness throughout the fold is both crucial. (This is straightforwards, but it’s still a more exacting type of folding than that usually happens.)
- When done folding, stack and align the signatures at their folds.
- All signature folds should align so the binding glue can reach them when clamped. If a signature stays stuck deep in the stack of signatures, reflatten the entire fold: a top edge you haven’t fully flattened will stop the entire signature from aligning.
- Finally, neaten the folds by weighing them down in your vise as one aligned stack.
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Align all the stacks together, and tape up to create one "text block".
- The final stack should have folded edges perfectly aligned.
- Make sure the taping isn’t too close to the binding.
- Don’t worry if the folded edges together are thicker than the loose edges: weights on the vise’ll compress them while glued. When glued, the bond then keeps them compressed.
(I choose to further neaten the folds at this point, similarly to the process outlined in step 3: putting as much weight on the folds of the whole stack, and waiting for good measure.)
- The first gluing: initially binding the signatures together.
- Put your vise parallel to the ground, binding surface towards you; weigh down the vise and make sure the stack isn’t bowing open at the middle.
- Apply PVA glue to the folded surfaces with your finger - cover all of the folds and the crevices inbetween, and then some. We’ll thicken and straighten this binding later.
The first gluing: pages clamped and weighed down in the vise; wingnuts tightened.
FRONT TOP
+------+------------------+------+
| | | |
+ + | XX+XX +---+ +---+ XX+XX |
| +---+ +---+ | | | | | | | | |
X | X | | | | X | X | | +---+ +---+ | |
XXX +---+ +---+ XXX | | | |
+--+---------------------------+--+ | | (pages within) | |
| ----------------------- | | | | |
| ----------------------- | | +------------------+ |
| ----------------------- | | |
+---------------------------------+ | |
XXX XXX +--------------------------------+
Note again the vertical position
of the bolts.
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Remove the drafting tape.
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The second gluing: thickening the spine of glue, making it uniform.
- How thick should the glue layer be? Check an existing book, but the answer usually is thicker than you’re comfortable with.
- Put your vise uptight this time, keeping the glue face-up; since the vise’s upright, no weights.
- Use your vise as a mold for this glue layer: apply glue generously to the spine, and spread it along with a ruler, laying down glue right up to the brim. The glue’s surface should be flat, uniform, and flush to the vise’s straight edge.
The second gluing: using the vise as a glue mold for the thickened binding.
+GGGGGGGGGG+
|GGGGGGGGGG|
X |++++++++++|
X||||||||||||X
+------------X
X||||||||||||X
X ||||||||||||
||||||||||||
||||||||||||
||||||||||||
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Trim down the inevitable irregularities in the binding. This is likely where the low-end satisfaction of do-it-yourself ends, and the question of investing in a hobby begins. No single satisfactory option exists.
- Try a print shop or a bookbindery. Plenty of bulk-scale (if not industrial-scale) tools exist, and I've had luck asking a print shop to cut stacks of paper with trim lines traced out. They'll likely have - in order of decreasing size - a paper guillotine, a "board shear", or a "stack cutter".
- The do-it-yourself option: a lying press and a plough. As with a great deal of do-it-yourself, there remains the fine-work-requires-investment option. Build yourself a "lying press" with a wide and flat "reference" top edge, and which applies tremendous pressure uniformly over the text block. Under the press, the paper face becomes as workable as wood if you work parallel to the edges of the sheets. The traditional tool for trimming stacks of paper is a "plough" (note the spelling) that requires the stack be edge-up; you might also try a bandsaw or a jigsaw followed by sandpaper.
- A cheap approximation of both the lying press and the plough can be found both here and here.
- I've had enough success further approximating the approximation: I use the two clamps mentioned above, two nice and thick planks from an IKEA BEKVÄM spice rack, and a thin (but wide) boxcutter blade aligned by the "reference" top edge of the lying press.
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The third gluing: adding a cover.
- Matte card is perfect. Glossy card holds too much friction, and finger grease on it looks ugly.
- If your book’s relatively thin, crease the card, glue the spine, and simply attach the cover to it.
- If your book’s thicker than a half-inch, first crease a centimetre from the spin in the front and back pages, then the spine; only then glue both the spine and extra margin.
- Then use your vise spine-down - let gravity press on the wet glue binding spine and cover.
That’s it.