I started with a reclaimed pine 2x6. I planned to use 8.5"x11" paper folded into signatures for the text block, so I cut the board into 10" sections. I will cut it to final size (9 inches) after it is cleaned up a bit. One section got cut into 3/4" wide strips. These will become the spines. I am working on several copies at once.
The other section had to be re-sawed into thinner planks for the covers. These cover boards had to take many trips through the planer to get them flat and smooth and planed down to the proper thickness. With the spine being 1.5" thick, 3/8" thick covers would leave me a good amount of space for the text block. I had to cut another 2x6 to make enough cover boards to make three books.
Then the spines got ran through the planer to square them up and get the paint off. Once that was done, it was time to cut the channel where the text block would sit. For this, I got to use my dado stack for the first time!
A 1.5" wide spine, minus a 3/8" cover on each side, leaves a 3/4" channel in the middle for the text block. The trick to making perfectly centered dados, is to make your stack a little smaller than the width of the dado you need. Then set your fence for the gap you want on each side, and run the wood through twice. The first pass establishes the gap on the fence side, then flip the wood around and run it through again going the other direction. This will set the dame distance for the gap on the other side. That probably doesn't explain it very well, but hopefully you will get what I mean from the pictures.
In the midst of planing, one of the cover boards cracked because it had the pith running through it. The pith is usually very weak, and should be avoided whenever possible. To salvage the board, I used super glue (cyanoacrylate) to repair the crack and strengthen the pith. While I was at it, I decided to put CA glue on all the other knots, cracks and other imperfections. In hindsight, I should have saved this step until later. Having the CA glue on the wood now means I can't use stain.
Once the CA Glue was dry, it was all sanded smooth. Then I dug out the old router table and a round over bit to round over the edges of the boards so that the books would be nicer to handle. The only edges that did not get rounded over were the ones where the boards would meet up at the hinge.
Now, it's time for decoration, so onto the new laser cutter! I used Inkscape to lay out the design, and burned it into the wood pieces with my Glowforge laser cutter/engraver. Although it was a big investment (about $2000) and a long wait for shipping (about 2 years!), I am glad I bought the laser. It has really opened up a lot of new possibilities for my work. I have no doubt I will outgrow this model eventually, but when that happens, now that I know what it can do for me, I wouldn't hesitate to invest in another machine (about $4k for the next step up).
Once all the pieces were laser engraved, it was time to apply finish to the pieces before final assembly. I started with a coat of shellac, then several coats of tung oil. Tung oil gives a beautiful finish, but it is a pain to apply. Flood the surface; wait 15 minutes. If the surface soaks up the oil, reapply. When 15 minutes is up, wipe off the excess oil. Then wait 24 hours to dry. Sand lightly, then do it all again. Repeat 3-4 times. Oh, and don't work on anything else in your shop while the finish is drying, or you will get sawdust in the finish! I hate the finishing process. I'm very impatient.
Now that the covers have finish applied, it is time to start on the pages. A while back, I got a really good deal on some parchment style card stock and thought that it would make great fill pages for blank journals. So, I cracked open a pack of it and started folding the pages in half with a bone folder.
A bone folder is one of those odd tools that seems so simple as to be unnecessary. Lots of people forgo buying a bone folder, instead using something like a table knife, or a spoon, or just their hands. Let me state (again) for the record that especially for bookbinding, the quality of my results improved substantially when I started using a bone folder. Do not forgo the folder. The folder is your friend. And don't cheap out and buy the plastic kind. Get real bone. It makes a difference. It seems like it shouldn't, but it does.
I grouped the folded pages into four page signatures. Normally, I would go with 6-8 page signatures, but these pages are kinda thick (65lbs. stock). Then I used two staples at the signature fold to keep each signature together. Because the throat depth on my stapler is too shallow to reach the fold, I had to open up the stapler and staple through the signature into a block of cork (an old coaster), then fold the ends of the staple over by hand.
Once all the signatures were together and stapled, I gathered them all together into a text block, made sure the edges were square and even at the spine, and trimmed the fore edge of the text block with a guillotine style paper cutter.
This paper cutter is awesome. It is super heavy duty. I found it on Craig's List for like $60-75 in perfect condition. I looked it up online and found this model retails for $400. The only issue it has (and the #1 complaint against it in online reviews) is that it doesn't cut straight if the stack of paper is TOO SMALL. This thing is designed to cut like 300 pages at a time! If you try to cut a stack that is less than about a half inch thick, the presser foot doesn't engage properly (not enough travel in the screw adjust to make it press all the way down to the bed) and so the pages don't get held firmly to the bed. This makes them move as the blade engages, and makes for a bad cut. To combat this problem, I plan to make a removable 3/4" thick spacer strip (probably out of wood) to place between the presser foot and the pages, for use with short stacks of pages.
With the signatures all stapled and the fore edges all neatly trimmed, it was time to glue the text block into the dado on the wooden spine. I used a flexible, but very strong, glue called E6000. I laid the glue inside the dado, not going all the way to the ends, but covering a large swath in the middle, making sure that the glue was distributed across the entire width of the dado, so every signature's fold would be sure to get glued.
Before pressing the collected signatures into the dado (which was a tight fit), I glued in a ribbon bookmark. I was careful to keep the text block aligned as it was pressed into the dado. One signature didn't seat all the way down to the spine because of the tight fit, so I used a razor knife, the kind with the wide snap off blade, and slid the blade into the center of the signature (sharp side away from the fold) and pressed the fold down to the spine.
The last step was to attach the front and back cover boards with brass hinges. I used a small piece of card stock as a spacer to make sure the spacing at the top and bottom was even. Then I used an awl to mark the center of the holes, which I then pre-drilled before attaching the hinges with the brass screws.
E6000 is a very strong glue, but I wanted a little more insurance that none of the signatures would come loose, as they are not sewn together. So, I pre-drilled some holes along the side of the spine and into the text block near the folds. Then I drove in 1" brass brads from both sides. This will pin the signatures together, and pin them to the spine block as well. A tiny drop of CA glue was added under the brad head to keep it from backing out.
And, that's it! A completed prototype of my new wooden covered book design. I'm very happy with the way it turned out. I think the pine boards look very nice, especially for scrap 2x6's. I think some nice hardwood boards would look even better. I'm going to look online and try to source some nicer looking hinges too. These were just what I could find at the hardware that would fit, and weren't too expensive. I'm looking forward to making some more of these.
It occurs to me that this is the first book, or book like thing, I have made in several years. I kinda miss book binding. One thing that sucks about having so many diverse interests; you never get to spend enough time with any of them.
