25 May
With the thinner needle, and most likely sharper needle it was easier to sew but it also went through the paper very easily. For my second notebook, while doing a kettle stitch I actually went through a sheet in the middle by accident. Thankfully, I caught it in time, went back through, and pulled it out. I had to unravel a few of the stitches a few times for both the books as with the thinner thread I kept tangling it.
For the second book, I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t waxed it enough or if I had pulled too hard after that accident, it ended up snapping. I just tied the two ends together again and started stitching like you would if you had to add more thread. For thread that was very cheap, it worked very well. There was one kettle stitch that I messed up on, and there was this extra loop, I believe the thread got tangled and there was an extra knot. For this book, I messed up the order of the signatures as well so the edges were very uneven and all over the place. I ended up nipping more of it with the guillotine.
I cut the grey board for the covers for the second notebook, the measurements I used were the size of the sheet of unfolded paper I used for the signature.
26 May
I was making my third notebook, I messed up too much on the other two to be completely happy with them. I still like the way they look but I wanted to see if there was a better way of doing it, and practice does make perfect. I also really enjoy the process of making a book and so I want to continue to do so and continue to make more notebooks. If I learn new things I’ll make another blog in the future.
For this third notebook, to begin with, I tried to make sure I had punched the awl all the way through while keeping the pages in their place.
Sitting down away from the table seemed to work best for me, I sat on a chair higher than the table. I put the signatures from the bottom to the top. I marked the top of the signatures with a straight line, and a diagonal line so I could see the order in which they should be kept. I started stitching with the bottom signatures bottom end.
I’ve found that this works best to make sure I’ve got the right order and that the spine is smoothly bound without many ups and downs.
This time, while stitching the signatures together, I made sure to pull the thread parallel to the spine. Pulling away from the spine in any direction weakens the thread, making it likelier to snap, as it did with the 3rd, blue notebook. There was a bad tangle at one point, I had to cut off the thread and then carefully pull the knot off, this took me a while because I was trying not to rip the kettle stitch (where it had gotten tangled). This is the second time it’s happened, I think I need to make a few more books and see how to get around this.
While glueing the spine after I finished stitching, I kept very little space between the spine and the boards pressing down on it. I think this helped me do a better job as it pressed down around the spine better. I also used a thin paintbrush to get the glue on this time, and I think this worked better than the glue brush for this purpose.
It’s important to mention that when you put something in the press, or before putting any weights on it, always make sure to put the text block/book/case in between boards of some kind. Here I used MDF boards at the printmaking workshop.
I had previously messed up on the measurement of the book cloth and the cover measurements so this time I want to really take my time and do it right.
I also cut up a piece of A1 2mm greyboard into 9 sets of front and back cover pieces. Or rather, I marked the measurements on the greyboard and the workshop technician (Gregor!) helped me cut them to size. You can’t use the usual guillotine to cut the grey boards. You probably could cut through them but the blades would dull considerably and very fast.
I’m told that the best way to cut greyboard is to do it slowly and carefully with a utility knife and to never do it when tired. I tried to cut some greyboard and was entirely unsuccessful last time.
For the blue notebook, I ended up sticking the endpaper entirely to the first page of the signature. I thought this might look better and have a stronger hold. However, the glue is very annoying to work with and making sure that it didn’t warp was hard. In the 2nd notebook with the cranes, I just stuck the endpapers like you usually would and I can say that I’m honestly happier with those results.
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