Deluoode's very own /lit/

[rancher]

This will be a "Future Gadget Laboratory" thread soon but: anyone here have experience with bookbinding?

I'm intending to feed Epub/HTML books into LaTeX via pandoc. Use bookbinder.js to generate "signatures". Print and bind books -- lots of folding and sewing. I spent about $250 between a Brother laserjet printer, extra ink, paper, bonefolder, awl, needles, threads, ruler, guillotine. I'm not jumping in 100% yet so -- I have yet to order proper book boards, book cloth, cheesecloth -- initial books will be coptic bound with covers made from repurposed cardboards and cloths.

Some of the big appeal of making books at home for me, aside from it being "relatively" cheap to make books and the artistic/crafting angle, is (a) being able to produce a library of books with consistent size, style, fonts, etc; and (b) being able to split larger books into smaller volumes.

I hate it so much when I have to read a book more than 300 pages long! I own some religious texts that are well beyond 1000 pages in length and it is very unpleasant to actually read them.

ex: Lord of the Rings is much more pleasant to read through in a 7 volume set, but these are rare. Wouldn't you rather have these if you could, though?

[RadioHades]

That's some massive quality autismo! Love it.

[rancher]

Tried coptic binding today now that my tools and printer have all arrived.

~300 page book broken into 5 sheet / 20 page signatures. (PALE FIRE)

The thing I didn't really expect with Coptic binding is how much a pain in the ass stitching the final cover to the book is. Stitching is strong enough, and the book can open flat while reading. I used a high quality PDF with a laser printer and it looks amazing inside. Used a potato camera but take my word for it.

"Case binding" (making a hardback with stitching, glue) feels a lot less intimidating now.

Due to this being my first time stitching books in a very, very long time, it took about 3 hours to complete from printing to end result. Stitching books is pretty mindless and repetitive -- background music really helped!

[rancher]

Just because this thread's a bit slow I'll show off my first "case bound" book: the Naked Lunch; it's a classic book that no one knows about here in Indonesia. I wonder why: it's a great book that everyone should read, full of valuable moral lessons!



~5MB video file showing it off. Low quality PDF and the binding isn't perfect, but I had fun doing it. Took under an hour to print and stitch the text together, under an hour to wrap cardboard with fabric and glue it to the text.

I used an Indonesian fabric style, Batik. It looks quite premium to me but was purchased very cheaply, and by the meter. The book feels good in the hands and the stitching/gluing is good-enough. If only I had properly typeset it by converting an Epub to LaTeX to PDF this would almost be the top-shelf book of my dreams. (Maybe adding a ribbon bookmark also.)

Last book-making tool is one of those fancy guillotine cutters to deal with excessive margins .... anyway..... that's what I was doing today.

Shout out to Burroughs; read Nova Express and Cities of the Red Night to understand what all the fuss is about.

Now that I've made a few books here's my thought on the hobby: aside from the initial investment price of getting a decent laser printer and paying for toner refills, everything is either cheap (paper, thread, fabric, cardboard, blue) or cheap and lasts "forever" (sewing needle, bone folder, metal ruler, cutting board, paintbrushes).

All of my books are A5 size (folded A4 paper) so calculating costs is pretty easy.

• A ream of A4 paper or 2000 book pages is about $3; pretending a book is 200 pages, that's $0.30 of paper a book.
• The toner for my printer is $25 for 2600 pages, or 5,200 book pages. which should be about $0.96 of ink per 200 page book.
• Cardboard, fabric, thread, and glue are cheap enough that I'm not paying attention to their costs...

... but it all factors in as under $2 to make a nice hardbound book.

So if you like books and crafting, may be a good hobby for you.