0 comments on my sanity Listening to: The Monkees- Heart and Soul
Mood: Accomplished
I spent most of the afternoon making a hardback book from scratch. It was incredibly fun, but I learned several important lessons that will serve me well for my next attempt (which will be as soon as I can squeeze in the time). These are mostly serious notes to remind myself of the process, so don't feel you have to read it unless you want to :)
1) Fold the signatures as a unit, not page by page, or the crease is too sharp and all the glue goes in the cracks and not on the spine, where it needs to be.
2) Make sure you line up your awl template with the spine of your signatures, or the holes come out wonky, dumbass.
3) Don't take the blade out of your knife and attempt to use it that way. You end up with giant fuckoff cuts on the ball of your thumb.
4) Use the right tool for the job. When you don't have the right tool for the job, for whatever reason, swear loudly and don't take the blade out of your knife and attempt to use it that way (see above).
5) PVA glue is your friend.
6) No matter how hard you try, and even if you use a ruler, you cannot cut artist's board in a straight line with a craft knife. This is a failing you need to rectify.
7) Covering a book in fabric is not like covering it with sticky-back plastic. The corners are much less forgiving, so take more care.
8) Unless you actually like having unsightly patches of PVA in the cover of your book, either buy fabric with some kind of impermeable backing, or spread the glue thinly enough that it won't have time to seep through before it dries.
9) Read the bloody instructions at least THREE MORE TIMES before you cut anything.
10) Tinfoil is your friend.
11) Tinfoil is your friend, so you should use it when you have just glued the inlay to the cover with a fuckload of glue so that your entire book block doesn't end up damp and wrinkly.
12) Masking tape is *not* your friend.
May 27, 2007 at 12:55 a.m.