How to Bind a Homemade Book
Making books at home allows you to create bindings that will hold numerous loose leaf pages together. A home-made binding is particularly useful in the event that you print out many pages that need to be well organized. Once your homemade book is bound together, you will be able to flip through the pages with ease. Binding your book can be done with glue and a few other simple components.
Things You'll Need
- Loose leaf pages
- Phonebook or similar heavy object
- Water
- Glue
- 2 sheets of hard card
- Piece of bed sheet
Instructions
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1
Collect all the pages of your book and make sure that they are all lined up with each other correctly. You can do this by tapping the paper on a table like a deck of cards.
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2
Place the stacked pages at the edge of a table and lay a phone book or similar heavy object on top of the stack.
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3
Move the pages to the edge of the table and let them hang off the table by about 1/2-inch. Letting the edges of the pages that you are going to bind hang off of the table enables you to apply the glue to the top of the first page, bottom of the last page and the edges of all the other pages without any obstructions.
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4
Wet the edges of the pages that you are planning to bind in order to help the glue to adhere. You can use your finger to apply a small amount of water to dampen the page edges before gluing. If the pages get too wet, let them dry until they are just damp.
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5
Apply the glue to the edges of the damp pages. Make sure that the edge of every page has glue applied to it in order to ensure a proper binding.
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6
Let the glue dry and test the strength of your newly bound book by flipping through the pages. If there are any loose pages, repeat Steps 2 to 5.
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7
Make the inner cover with two sheets of hard card. The outer cover can be made with a large sheet of sturdier paper. Use two "tapes" of a flexible card to help attach the pages to the cover. Reinforce the spine with a piece of bed sheet. Spread a thin layer of glue inside the spine of the book and fit the cover around the book and into position. Place a phone book on top of the bound edge and let the glue dry.
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Tips & Warnings
Gorilla Glue works well to fill gaps in between the pages by expanding after application.
Make sure the heavy object that you use to keep the pages together while applying the glue is heavy enough to keep all the pages in place.
Different glues will have different drying times. Refer to the instructions on the glue container that you use for precise glue drying times.
See Reference 3 for instructions on creating a book cover.
Only apply the glue to the edges of the pages that will be bound together.
References
- Photo Credit Digital Vision./Photodisc/Getty Images
