Get Your Strap On

      I just wrapped up construction of a project that has been on my to-do list for several years: guitar straps. You see, about fifteen years ago, I did a re-build of the old lighting rig for Rogue Cthulhu. I build log of that re-build to post here has also been on my to-do list for several years. Anyway, part of that re-build included using a winch to raise the new light rig. That winch used nylon webbing (seat belt material) instead of the usual rope on the winch. I sourced a fair bit of grey and also black 2" webbing for that project and had quite a bit left over. My immediate thought was, "let's use it to make guitar straps." That thought ruminated in my mind for the next fifteen years, until last night.

 

     Over the past two or so years, I've been piecing together the other parts I'd need to make the guitar strap project; buckles, leather...  Well, that's pretty much it, buckles and leather, and I already had the leather. But in my defense, I did have a difficult time finding buckles that I thought were perfect for the job, and also, I didn't look very hard. 

     The leather I used is a thin soft calf skin like black leather (not sure of its origin) with a textured pattern on one side. I found this leather at a discount store many many years ago. It is far too thin and weak to be used for the strap ends, so of course, that's what I used it for. To make it work, I doubled up the leather, giving me the textured pattern surface on both sides, and also sandwiched 10 oz. black cotton canvas between the layers. These I married with spray adhesive, and would later stitch the edges for reinforcement. I cut out the strap ends with the help of a template I made in Inkscape, using an existing guitar strap from my collection as a guide.

     Once all the pieces and the stars aligned, All that was left was to dig out the sewing machine and assemble the straps. It was pretty evident that I hadn't used my sewing machine in quite a while. My first attempt yielded pretty horrible results. After switching to grey thread, like a normal person would, I ripped out and re-sewed that zig-zag stitch about a dozen times before I was satisfied with the results (read as: too frustrated to continue).

     After adding the buckles and stitching the ends, I cut the strap button holes with a hole punch and a craft knife. That's it. It took about an afternoon to make three of them. Probably would have gone a lot faster if my sewing wasn't so bad.

Tarot Bag

A couple of years ago, I was shopping at my favorite discount store, which gets one-off random stuff in all the time that it sells for dirt cheap, and I found a big bin full of these leather scraps. It is super soft calf-skin like leather with a cool pattern on it.

Each scrap was about 2-3 square feet in area, and I think they cost me about $2 each, so I bought a LOT of them. Other than one small modification project that I won't describe, this is the first project that I have used this leather for.

I'm always finding that the stock sizes for velveteen bags that I can get for the store are ill suited for holding tarot cards. If they are tall enough, they are too wide. So I decided to make a few tarot bags from these leather scraps.

I don't do a lot of sewing. I'm not particularly good at it, and just about every time I touch a sewing machine, it jams up on me. But I do have a sewing machine (the second cheapest one I could get from walmart), and I did take Home Ec. in Jr. high, so I know the basics of how to sew.

I made a chipboard template (5"x9") to help with cutting out all the pieces of leather. Each piece of leather was then spray glued to a piece of green lightweight cotton fabric, which will become the bag's liner.

The top edge was folded over on each piece and sewn down. This will be the top edge of the bag, and this is where the drawstring will go.

The two sides of the bag were sewn together with a zigzag stitch that wraps around the edge of the fabric to prevent fraying. The bag is sewn together inside out.

Once the drawstring is threaded through the hem at the top edge, the bag can be turned right side out.

This was a fairly simple project, but one that I think will sell well in my shop.

Demo Book #1 (part 2)

So, continuing from my previous post, Demo Book #1 (part 1)...

After completing the new case I set about casing in the text block. I have been having a little trouble with my end sheets and sometimes some of the first and last pages of the text block getting wrinkled due to the moisture in the glue from when I glue on the mull to the spine and paste down the overhang to the outside of the end sheets. It didn't happen all the time, but sometimes it was very noticeable and it would ruin an otherwise perfect re-covering job. When that happened, I could use it as-is, or tear out the end paper and apply a new one, but if the damage went into the text block there was nothing I could do about it. I have been using blotter pages to try to take up the moisture, but sometimes it didn't seem to help. Recently I have adjusted my technique to combat the problem. Now I use at least two blotter pages AND a piece of waxed paper to stop the moisture from getting to the text block, and on top of that, I have changed the way that I do end papers to help eliminate the ugly wrinkles.

Instead of using a single folded sheet for the end paper, attached to the first and last signature with a dry roll-on adhesive, now I use a double end paper. I take TWO folded sheets, one which will be the final decorative end paper, and a plain white sheet. I use the dry adhesive, as usual, along the edge of the decorative end paper, but instead of applying it to the text block, I place in within the fold of the plain white sheet. Then, I adhere the plain white sheet to the text block as I normally would. So I end up with and papers that are a two sheet signature, with the decorative paper on the inside surrounded by a plain white sheet. This will give me one extra blank white page at the beginning and end of the text block, and a white page interceding between the mull and the end paper. The mull gets glued down to the white page instead of the end paper. Then the white sheet is pasted down to the boards, using spray adhesive, like I normally would do to the end paper. Afterward, I will use the spray on adhesive to paste down the decorative end paper also, right on top of the white sheet. This way, if the white sheet gets wrinkled from the glue on the mull, it doesn't matter. A nice clean wrinkle free end paper is going to hide it. I usually trim the white sheet a little smaller than the decorative sheet so that the decorative sheet covers it completely. I do this by tearing instead of cutting, so that the deckled edge smooths down and becomes invisible underneath the decorative sheet. If I cut the white sheet, the edge of the cut sheet might show a little under the decorative sheet.

Sorry, no pictures of the end papers, but that would probably be boring anyway.

UPDATE: I have posted an article detailing the double end paper technique with pictures. You can find it here.

Now on to the final book cover. So where were we... ah yes, we left off with the finished cover ready to be cased around the text block.

 I had originally planned on leaving it pretty much at that, and using a title card printed on my computer and glued to the front cover, like so...

I thought that looked pretty snazzy. But I showed it to my daughter and she sneered at it. She said it looked "retarded". Clarifying, she said that it looked like I spend a lot of time and effort on the cover, but the title just looked like a piece of paper glued on it. I was a little deflated, but I had to agree that she had a point. It needed something.

I had been toying with the idea of creating decorative frames for these kinds of title cards, but had never tried it. This looked like the perfect opportunity. I had previously picked up a couple of small cheap picture frames that I thought had potential for this purpose. You can see them in the upper right of this picture.

I set about making a one-shot mold of one of the frames using sulfur free oil based modeling clay. After pressing the frame's face down into the flattened clay, I gave the clay mold a coat of black spray paint. It makes an excellent mold release for this purpose. It bonds to the resin, and it does not add any coating that will hamper further painting like silicon mold release will do.

After creating the mold and spray painting it, I poured polyurethane resin directly onto the clay mold. After 15 minutes or so, I removed the casting, which destroyed the clay mold. After demolding, there is still a good bit of clay stuck to the surface of the casting. This cleans up easily with a squirt of Goo Gone, some water and a scrub brush. The Goo Gone also takes off the spray paint from the plastic, but that doesn't matter, as it will be repainted any way.

The resin casting took a fair bit of cleaning up with a hobby knife before it was ready for use. Then it got a flat black base coat of spray paint and a dry brushing of antique gold acrylic paint and a bit of gold Rub-N-Buff. Fortunately, the title page that I had glued on seemed to come off really easily (bad gluing job I guess). Call it kismet. While I was gussying up the front cover, it only seemed right to add a satin ribbon book mark as well.

And of course, my hand sewn headbands.

The paper title card was slightly too large to use in the frame, so I had to print out another one. I decided to change the fonts up a bit from my original design. I printed out three new designs and spend longer than usual choosing which one to use. Once I decided, I glued it onto a card stock backing to give it some body and prevent the wrinkles in the covering material from affecting it. Then I glued it to the underside of the frame and then the frame to the cover. Here is the final selection, neatly placed on the front cover.

The finished product.

Ta-da!
Here are some more glamor shots of the finished item.

Aside from this book being a misprint, and having a small spot of paint on the edge of the pages from being stored. The only flaw in this book is that I lost a little of my square at the fore edge. Just a millimeter or so, and it's still usable, but it made the square a little off. I will adjust for this in future bindings.

P.S.- My renewed and continued thanks to Propnomicon for linking to Part One of this post. Since it doesn't have much to do with Cthulhu, I suppose it must have been a slow news day in Mythos land, but I am grateful for the traffic bump anyway.

Demo Book #1 (part 1)

The other day I posted about making my own headbands for a book I was working on. Unfortunately, I had put away my camera before installing it. Here is what the finished headband looks like in the book.

Hand made headband

I was making it for a demo book I have been working on. The original book was a paperback copy of Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, by Scott Cunningham. The book was misprinted and thus unsellable. Since it is a very popular seller in my shop, I decided to use it to showcase some of my re-covering skills and available materials and techniques.

I started, as usual, with tearing off the paperback cover, measuring the text block, cutting front and rear boards and a spine out of chipboard, and gluing them all down to a paper hinge that had been carefully measured. That part is apparently something I'm still working the kinks out of, because my square (the overlap between the book board and the edge of the text block) still ended up a little short on the for edge. Just a millimeter or two, but notable. I used a new technique, putting the spine on the opposite side of the paper hinge as the boards. I saw this done on several videos I watched on YouTube. I'm not really sure how that makes a difference, but I thought I would give it a try.

After the basic case pieces were assembled, I decided to add some embellishments. Since this is an herb book, I cut out some leaf designs with a hobby knife and a stencil out of some chipboard, and glued them to the front and back boards. I used my usual wrinkled kraft paper and glue covering technique, which I gave my usual three layer painted finish, which I have become quite fond of. After the glue is dry, I give it a base coat of black tempura paint (because it's cheaper than acrylic), then a sea sponge daubed coat of a darker, and then a slightly lighter green acrylic paint, and finally I dry brush it with antique gold acrylic paint. The gold dry brushing really picked up the edges of the chipboard appliques, as well as the wrinkles in the paper, and makes them stand out nicely. Afterward, I gave it a coat of clear matte spray sealer.

As usual, click through for a larger image.

Once all the paint and sealer were dry, I trimmed the excess paper to a uniform width around the edges (which is a step I usually skip, but I am trying to improve my technique and make a neater product) and "turned in" the edges. You will notice that I am linking to a couple of my favorite videos about bookbinding that I have found on YouTube. I particularly like the ones posted by Ceropegia. I have adopted several of his techniques from those videos and I think it has improved my final products.

And here is what the final covered case looks like before "casing in" the text block.

I'm going to leave it there for now, as I am trying to train myself to make shorter posts and to post more frequently. I'll be back very soon with pictures of the finished book and some of the finishing details I used that are unique to this item. Stay tuned!

Update:  Part 2 has now been posted. See the final product.

Hand Sewn Headband (for books)

I'm thinking of changing the way I post things on the blog. I have lots of projects in the works, and quite a few that are done and need to be posted, the biggest impediment being that there are lots of photos that need to be edited. I'm thinking that maybe if I made smaller posts I could make them more often. More frequent posts should mean more return visitors. Also, breaking a project down into smaller chunks and posting the progress shots as they are made might be easier than waiting for a project to be finished and then editing and collating all the pics and doing a big write up, then waiting for the next project to be finished. If you have an opinion as to which is better, bigger posts about completed projects, or smaller posts of projects in progress that come up more frequently, please leave a comment.

So, to try out the new posting format, here is a little snip of a project that is currently in production and almost complete.

I have two copies of Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, by Scott Cunningham, that were misprinted and unsellable, so I am re-covering them with a custom hard case to showcase some covering and materials options for potential customers who may want me to re-cover their books for them. As the original book was a paperback, it did not have a headband (that little tab of cloth wrapped with colored thread at the top and bottom of the spine). I have no sources for bookbinding materials in my area, and the pre-fabricated headband I found for sale over the internet is a bit expensive, so I decided to make my own.

I started with a technique that I have seen mentioned on several websites and in a few YouTube videos (yes, people actually make YouTube videos about bookbinding techniques, and I thank them for it). I took a piece of black cloth, about 1.5 inches wide by 4 inches long, and coated one side with white glue. Then I laid a piece of black hemp cord (the kind hippies make bracelets out of) and laid it lengthwise across the middle of the strip of cloth, on the glued side. Then I folded the cloth over at the cord, and smoothed it down, using a bone folder to snug up the seal along the edge of the cord.

Now, the websites and videos I saw just leave it there, and I could have too. You just wait for the glue to dry, cut a piece off of the strip to the length needed and glue it into place at the spine of the book before it is cased in. But this time I decided to go the extra mile. I decided to hand wrap the headband in colored thread to make it look nicer and more authentic. I used a forest green embroidery floss, which I had to thin by a few strands, and using a needle, I hand sewed the headband, piercing just below the cord and wrapping the thread around the cord for the length of the strip (or until I ran out of thread). It was basically simple embroidery, just like my mother taught me when I was 7. A little tedious and a little time consuming, but not difficult at all.

After I had sewn as far as I could, making sure my stitches were evenly spaced and tight, I ran a very small bead of superglue along the bottom edge of the embroidery, so that it would not unravel when the headband was cut to length. I think in the future I might try putting a light coat of white glue along the cord edge and wrap/sew the floss over it. That would do a better job, but it might be too messy. I don't want to gum up the floss with glue as I sew.