Low Bridge Bindery

micah, 27 ● bookbinding for fun since 2021!

[low-bridge-bindery]

never base your cardstock purchases on the assumption that you won't have production issues

[low-bridge-bindery]

finally circling back to this. necessity is the mother of making arbitrary decisions so you can move on instead of fretting over the hypothetical perfect solution

[runawaymarbles]

Bookbinding: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in Braille.

So if any of you remember me having a breakdown about the Rime of the Ancient Mariner a few months ago...I've finally finished it!

The write-up for this is long so I'm putting it below the cut.

I. THE BRAILLING

I manually transcribed the entire poem using PerkyDuck. "Isn't there a free program that will do that automatically?" you may ask. Yes. There is. It's called BrailleBlaster, and you just paste in your text and it transcribes it for you. It even automates the page numbers. Delightful! However. When embossing via BrailleBlaster, you cannot set the left margin to 6", which is what I needed to do to be able to fold it like a booklet.* I even called their customer support, had a hell of a time explaining what I was after, and their final conclusion was that wasn't possible but they were entertained that I was trying to do it in the first place. (I also tried importing BrailleBlaster files into PerkyDuck. No go.)

*The pages are not double sided: I have a $100 embosser, and the kinds that do double sided run more like $5,000. I think I could have done it manually if I'd fiddled with the offset but frankly life's too short.)

So! Manual transcription it was. It's kind of soothing.

I was using Grade 2 Braille, which contracts a lot of common words or letter combinations. (e.g. "because" two letters: "be"+"c", and "mariner" is four letters: "m"+"ar"+"in"+"er".) I would love to tell you that I'm a prodigy who casually memorized all the contractions and shortforms, but what I actually did was turn my reference text into a cheatsheet:

The part where I had to proofread it was less soothing, and felt more like I was learning to read again by sounding out words. I think I ended up going over it two or three times, and I'm sure I missed some things, but such is life.

II. THE PRINTING

For reasons that will be obvious if you think about it for a moment, braille paper is dot matrix. So to print each seven-sheet signature, I'd print 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, and then I'd flip it over, reload it, and print 14,13,12,11,10,9,8. Since the first page is the title page, the braille page numbers and what the computer thought the page numbers were were one off, and I ended up making a chart with both computer and braille page numbers so I wouldn't lose track.

There was also a subplot where it kept cutting off at 15 lines; eventually me and a friend figured out that there was a light sensor on the embosser that would detect when there were no more pages, and it would cut it off there so it wouldn't break itself by dry firing. Great system, when you consider it's made for people who can't just glance over to see how much paper is left. Terrible system for what I was trying to do. I ended up taping a tiny piece of paper over the sensor, and then it worked fine.

III. THE BINDING

I did my first (well, second, but first that I had and could photograph) braille binding a couple years back, and did a Coptic binding. The problem with that, as you can imagine, is that with nothing to brace the spine, and with all that space between the pages, it tends to twist. So I wanted to try it using @queercore-curriculum's embroidered spine method.

Unfortunately I did not remotely comprehend the embroidered spine method. Fortunately dj, who still does not have a tumblr, did (and also helped with the spine design, and ended up sewing a decent number of the signatures herself when I got insanely frustrated): between that and @gempothospress figuring out how to make the blackwork work properly line up on the backside, it was very much a group effort.

Because of the spacing of the signatures, there were some big gaps:

What I should have done was glue down some decorative paper on the back of the spine before punching the holes, but since I didn't do that, I micro-spatulated some strips of paper in between there. (I went with one with a fun texture.)

The endpapers are also textured; I'd originally planned to use them for Moby Dick, and a few years ago I sewed an entire text block of Moby Dick that I ended up not using, so I cut them off and repurposed them.

The cover art is HTV. The albatross came through perfectly. The boat has been haunting me all afternoon. I'm gonna call the fact that it looks pretty beat up ~thematic~ and leave it at that.

IV. THE CONCLUSION

It's a 4,000 word poem, which using this frankly insane method, came out to a 3" tall 6x9" book. There's a reason Braille books are 11x11.5" spiral-bound double-sided affairs. I knew going in that this would be silly, and the result is in fact silly, but also, I think it's neat, and that's what's important here.

[mellific]

to shore, 2025 screen print, papercraft

made a "squash" accordion book... quite pleased with how this one turned out!! the back cover is exactly how i wanted hahaha

[low-bridge-bindery]

never base your cardstock purchases on the assumption that you won't have production issues

[low-bridge-bindery]

after nearly 10 months of frustration-induced procrastination, spellbook boards are finally covered!

[low-bridge-bindery]

just gotta figure out how to make sleeves without adding too much bulk and then we're in business!

[low-bridge-bindery]

after nearly 10 months of frustration-induced procrastination, spellbook boards are finally covered!

[macrolit]

[macrolit]

1889 Houghton, Mifflin and Company edition of Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (b. 27 February 1807)

[honeyluvsw]

art nouveau tile pngs ! credit not necessary for pngs ! like or reblog to use <3

[low-bridge-bindery]

test prints of my spell card back continue

settings, clockwise from top left:

regular cardstock, default pressure, texture side up

regular cardstock, default pressure, texture side down

regular cardstock, heavy pressure, texture side up

regular cardstock, heavy pressure, texture side down

[low-bridge-bindery]

two more test prints and finally we have a winner!

[low-bridge-bindery]

test prints of my spell card back continue

settings, clockwise from top left:

regular cardstock, default pressure, texture side up

regular cardstock, default pressure, texture side down

regular cardstock, heavy pressure, texture side up

regular cardstock, heavy pressure, texture side down

[celestial-sphere-press]

Book Decoration: AKA All The Ways I Don't Use a Cricut

(this post is for people who don't want to buy an expensive cutting tool, or for those that do have an expensive cutting tool that would like to mix things up a little)

1. Print That Shit

If you're already printing your own textblocks, an easy step for titles is to print them. Above is a title printed onto an "obi" of decorative paper. I measured out where I wanted things on the finished book and laid it out in Affinity, then printed it on a full sheet & trimmed it down to wrap around the book. A more simple method is to print & glue on the label into a slight indent in the cover (to protect it). A third option is to do the spine in bookcloth, while you print on paper for the cover and then glue that paper onto the boards (this usually looks even better when it is a three-piece bradel bind).

2. Foil Quill / Heat Pens

The heat pen is one of my go-to tools, but it can be a bit touchy about materials. The most popular version is the We R Memory Keepers' Foil Quill (which is one of the most ergonomic), but other pens exist that can get you to a higher heat temp, finer lines, or more consistent foil. For example, I have a pen created by a local Japanese bookbinding studio that fares way better on leathers than the WRMK quill & with a finer tip, but it's hell to control. Best results in general are on paper or smooth bookcloth (starched linen, arrestox, colibri - even duo will work but its less solid). The fuzzier a bookcloth is, the less your foil quill wants to deal with it. This means the heat n bond method of making bookcloth does not play nice with a heat pen usually, but there are two solutions: 1) use this tutorial on paste + acrylic medium coated bookcloth instead that will get you a perfect surface for the heat pen, or 2) use the pen on paper & then glue onto the cloth. I did a video tutorial for both foil quill use and this type of homemade bookcloth for @renegadeguild Binderary in 2023.

You get the most consistent results by tracing through a printed template that is taped in place, as I do in the video above.

3. Paint That Shit

Acrylic paints will do you fine! The above is free-handed with a circle template, because I wanted that vibe. If you need straight lines that won't seep, lay them down with tape first & then paint over it first with a clear Acrylic medium, then your color. Same goes for stencils. Two more examples of painted bookcloth:

4. IT'S GOT LAYERS

By using layers of thinner boards, you can create interesting depths & contrasts on your cover. You can also make cutouts that peep through to the decorative paper behind. The most important part to this technique is the order in which each edge is wrapped. To get a good wrapped inside edge, you will split the turn in into tabs to get them to conform to a curve. You can also layer multiple colors of bookcloth without multiple layers of board, as seen below left, so long as you mind your cut edges for fraying.

5. Inlaid... anything

Mirrors! Marbled paper! I saw someone do a pretty metal bookmark once! The key is creating a little home for it to live in, which is pretty similar to the above layering method. On one layer you cut the shape, & glue that layer onto the bottom solid board before covering. You can do the top layer as an entire 1 mm board (like I did for the mirrors) or a sheet of cardstock, like I would use for inlaid paper.

6. Decorative Paper

Decorative paper is always helpful & adds to the paper hoard... & its effects can be layers with other techniques, as below. Marbles, chiyogami, momi, or prints & maps of all kinds can be great additions. Some papers may need a protective coating (such as wax or a sealer).

7. Stamps (with optional linocut)

While I've not used many more regular rubber stamps, I do know some who have, successfully! And I've used one once or twice with embossing powder (see photo 3 up, the gold anchor on the little pamphlet bind). What also works is to carve your own linocut or stamp, & then use block printing ink to ink it onto your fabric (as i did above). A bit time intensive, but it was nice how easily reproducible it was, and I liked the effect I got for this particular bind.

These methods are not exhaustive, just ones I've used, and there are of course many others. I haven't gone too into detail on any of these for the sake of length (& post photo limits) but feel free to ask about more specifics. Usually I'm using them in combination with other options.

[low-bridge-bindery]

made a spell card back for my divination wizard! we'll see if the cricut has a clue how to cut this out

[low-bridge-bindery]

changed my mind

[low-bridge-bindery]

great news it turns out you CAN use circumscription to align and draw complex polygons in powerpoint! sad news my effective use of the tools did not actually produce a more inspired design

[low-bridge-bindery]

made a spell card back for my divination wizard! we'll see if the cricut has a clue how to cut this out

[low-bridge-bindery]

changed my mind

[low-bridge-bindery]

made a spell card back for my divination wizard! we'll see if the cricut has a clue how to cut this out

[low-bridge-bindery]

WHOOOOOO nothing like a new project fugue state!!

[book-historia]

Curl up with a book? More like curl up IN a book! 🛌 This Victorian collage album is a mansion in book form 🤩 Created in the 1880s or 90s, it would have been the ideal setting for some choice paper doll drama. It’s part of the Winterthur Library, and has been fully digitized! You can view the whole thing here.

[honetii]

I'm like super normal and not unhinged in the slightest (I spent 3 days formatting, printing, and binding a niche internet story about sci fi football into a 280 page physical book)

[adulthoodisokay]

that is fucking amazing, OP