#bookbinding advice

[birdiebinds]

Hello there! I just stalked (in a loving way<3) your blog a bit <3 , I looooove your binds!!!!! They are so crisp, omg! You can see the love that goes in to them!!!

I have a question if you don't mind, I also have an Epson ET8550, and I just got a few sheets of printable canvas, but I haven't had the chance to test it yet.

You mentioned some crackling, too much/not enough sealant, scratching, ummm, would you have a few pieces of advice for me? :D When you print what type of paper do you choose in the printer properties? And also, do you use the normal rear feeding slot? Or the 'thick paper'-special-feeding-slot-from-the-back (i don't know it's actual name, sorry!)

Hope your day is sunny, the creativity is flowing, and ink never runs out!!

Thank you so much for your kind words!

Printer:

I always use the rear feeder, I've never used the thick paper feed, and I've tested the front feed but I don't use it to print binds.

When printing on canvas I use the premium presentation matte paper setting, per the canvas manufacturer settings

I print on the white side of the canvas (compared to the more fabricy tanner side). You can print on both, but may get a little blurriness on the fabric side

I always print a alignment check before I print on the canvas to make sure all my ink is aligned so I reduce potential reprints

I do not do borderless printing for canvas, borderless expands the page, even if you select retain size. It's very minor, but it's enough to notice when you have a very precisely sized wrap cover

I print with high quality, and turn off bi-directional printing.

I print from the free version of Adobe Acrobat

My printer tends to print things redder than it looks on my screen, so I've printed a color code chart on canvas which I use to compare color codes to things before I print, and adjust the colors accordingly to make sure I'll be happy with the print. The color chart I printed on 11x17 canvas is available in my template drive on my linktree in my profile.

Canvas:

I use PPD canvas, but I recently purchased another brand to see how it compares. PPD is on the thicker side, which I think contributes to the cracking, and general difficulty in managing it

I do very sharp hinges (I literally glue the hinge edge down), so the canvas basically is turning a solid 90 degrees, this contributes to the cracking, if you do the more normal hinge, I think you'd only risk cracking when it turns around the very edges.

I have tested spraying before and after applying to boards. I get cracking either way. I think I get more cracking when I pre-spray, but I also am doomed to get glue marks. So I pre-spray because I'd rather avoid scratch and glue risk, but you should give them both a try and see what works for you, maybe you work cleaner than me lol.

I spray with Krylon Fixitif, I have done several coats so it's quite thick, and it cracked a lot. Now I do two very light coats, in opposite orientations (one spraying horizontal and the other vertical) and I call it a day on the spray which seems to be the sweet spot that minimizes cracking but provides protection.

I have accepted the slight cracking, it doesn't bother me that much, but I'll share what I find with the different brand, maybe that will make all the difference.

I hope that helps you a bit! Let me know if you have more questions as go :)

[valentinerose529]

Looking for advice on restorative bookbinding!

I recently learned about fanbinding and custom bookbinding, and I've decided it would be a super neat thing to learn how to do. Since i've never done anything like it before besides like, those little books we'd make in elementary school with folded printer paper and a staple gun, I'm looking for outside advice!

I got a very nice sci-fi book from my dad, but calling it well-loved is an understatement.

It's torn completely in half, but in my (limited) experience it's still salvageable. Like, as a book, it's still usable, i can and do read it i'm just careful with the outermost pages of each chunk.

I'd like to try my hand at rebinding this book, just as a beginner side project, since it's here and I already own it and nobody will read it except me, so who cares if the binding job is sloppy or crooked?

Each half is mostly solid, although the cover pieces and outer pages are only hanging on by threads.

The paper of the spine is pretty cracked, but the two cover pieces are in pretty good condition except for nicks and fraying around the edges.

the second chunk has a hole in the top page, but it only takes out like two words and i'm ninety percent sure i can extrapolate the blanks from the context if/when i patch that page.

It's about 860 pages long not counting the non-story ones like title pages, about the author, etc. I know there's a limit for how many pages certain binding styles can handle.

it's also printed on like, i don't know the name for it but it's that really thin yellowish paper that a ton of those old paperbacks are printed in (is pulp fiction the right word?)

Since it's a paperback, it doesn't have endpapers per se. Whatever cover I made and attached, would I need endpapers to glue to the inner cover? Would it be better to sacrifice the existing first and last pages to be endpapers (which i don't mind doing since the first has a story snippet and the last is blank), or better to glue dedicated endpapers to the text block at the same time I glue the two chunks together?

I don't really have a preference on hardback or paperback cover, I think hardbacks are easier for beginners to make?

I'd like to preserve the cover or at least the design of it somehow, so one of my ideas is to scan the cover and spine and print them out bigger onto a larger piece of paper if I decide to go with a hardback cover.

The second chunk has the paper of the spine on it (also hanging on by a thread). I'm not sure if I should scrape off the leftover spine paper/glue that's on the spines of the text blocks before I glue on a cover, or if it'll be fine to glue a fresh cover on top of it (after separating the graphic paper of the spine).

In terms of materials, I actually own a bottle of acid free archival quality book glue (I bought it ages ago in hopes of patching another book that tore in half from use), I have plenty of scrapbooking paper and cotton fabric left over from other projects, and I think my local makerspace has a dedicated bookbinding press!

It's a neat story, but the physical book itself has no sentimental value to me or my dad, so if I can't fix it I'll just buy a fresh copy and sacrifice this one as material for other paper crafts. I just thought it'd be a fun place to start learning how to bookbind, rather than trying to format and print and shape a fresh text block from scratch.

If you need more info about this project, please ask and I'm happy to share it. Any advice is appreciated, and thank you in advance!