How to Make a Leather Bound Book
Leather bound hardcover books hold a particular charm that no other form of reading material can adequately duplicate. While professional bookbinding is a precise craft that takes years to master, most people can make a simple version of the classic leather bound book at home with very few tools or special skills needed. While these do-it-yourself books lack some of the precision of professionally-bound volumes, they use the same basic processes and are fully usable, good-looking books.
Things You'll Need
- Paper
- Needle and thread
- One-handed bar clamps
- Paperboard
- Craft knife
- Ruler
- Marker
- Flexible contact cement
- Very thin leather
Instructions
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1
Cut your paper down so that each piece is the height you want your book pages to be and twice the length.
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2
Stack five sheets of paper neatly, then fold the stack down the middle to create a set, or "signature," of 20 book pages. Repeat this until you have as many pages as you want in your book, plus at least two extra pages.
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3
Open one signature in half and lay it flat. Use a threaded needle to poke holes about an inch apart along the crease and stitch the signature snugly together. Repeat this process with every signature.
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4
Stack the signatures as neatly as possible, spine up, and clamp them together tightly from the sides. With the clamps on, they should look like a finished, closed book without a cover. Make sure the sides of the clamps are close to, but not quite lined up with the spine of the signatures, to avoid gluing the clamps to the book when you apply glue to the spine.
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5
Measure the spine formed by the signatures and cut out a paperboard rectangle of the same width, but half an inch longer.
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6
Cut out two identical paperboard rectangles the same width as the pages but half an inch longer.
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Lay your leather flat, rough side up, and lay the three pieces of paperboard on it. Lay the spine piece in the center, with a page piece on either side separated by a quarter-inch gap. Line up the top and bottom edges of all three pieces and use a marker to trace the outline of the pieces onto the leather, then remove the pieces.
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8
Apply flexible contact cement to one side of the paperboard pieces and to outlined areas of the leather, and affix the leather to the pieces, according to the instructions on the cement.
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9
Cut the leather into a rectangle around the paperboard so that there is about a half inch of leather on all sides of the pieces, then make a cut from each corner of the leather to the corresponding corner of the paperboard, creating four leather flaps. Cut a quarter inch deep notch out of the top and bottom flaps lined up with the spine piece so that there is only a quarter inch of leather left above and below it.
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10
Apply contact cement to the side flaps and to the half inch of paperboard they will cover when they are folded over it and affix them as before. Repeat this process with the top and bottom flaps.
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11
Apply contact cement to the clamped spine of the signatures and the spine paperboard piece and affix them as before. Unclamp the pages once the cement is cured.
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12
Apply contact cement to the side of the first page touching the paperboard and to the paperboard and edges of leather it covers, and affix them as before. Repeat this process with the last page.
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References
- Photo Credit an opened book image by Maria Brzostowska from Fotolia.com
