Letter-Writing Folio

As I write a lot of letters, I was running into the problem that I couldn't find any kind of folder or folio to hold all of my letter stuff in one place. So, being the true bibliophile, I decided to make what I needed.

Basically, the folio had to hold envelopes, a writing pad and something to write with. You would have thought that it would have been easy to find. Any kind of office supply place should have had something that could of worked but nope.

With some scrap pieces of cardboard, file folder and gray board, I grabbed the handyman's secret weapon (duct tape) and started pulling the elements together.

I added a slot to the back of the folio so that whatever writing pad I was using could be slid into it. I wanted it to be held closed so the letters would fall out or get loose in my bag so I added a closure flap to the right with some velcro squares.

The pencil loops was just so that I had some place to keep a utensil.

Duct tape makes a perfect joint; it's flexible and fairly strong.

If I were doing this folio for real, I'd probably use leather; preferably pig skin.

This design is a working prototype so it's not about polish or presentation. It just has to work until I can figure out where corrections need to be made. Give it while and I'll probably make a version for real. Just in time so that I can find a folio that I was originally looking for.

Once the folio is closed, the velcro strips line up to keep it held closed. I may cover the thing in paper or something even though it only is a working prototype.

I'll post some updates if I make revisions.

-Tom

Bookbinding: Poor Man's Double-Fold

I'm always looking for new ways to experiment with bookbinding. One of the ideas that occurred to me was to make a double-fold book that could be made with readily available supplies; like composition notebooks.

When I was younger, composition notebooks were worth their weight in silver. They were handy for just about everything. About two years ago, I found that a dollar-store near me was selling these pocket-sized composition notebooks and I picked up a few dozen to play with.

This project involves turning two of these small, comp. books into a double-fold book. I've made several full-sized, double-folds for friends over the years and this is just an easier, quick version. Double-folds are handy because it allows you to have two separate books within the same cover. I have used the double-fold design for things like bibles, diaries, and scrapbooks. It's a handy design because you can take a finished book (in the case of a bible) and add a notebook to it for your own research or reference. I didn't like cutting the cover of the bible (I'm a devout follower of "The Book" - aka bibliophile), but the friend I was making the piece for didn't mind as it was one of the free copies of the Book of Mormon.

STEP 1:

Stand book 2 (your secondary book) up on its edge and trace it against the inside cover of book 1 (the main book you'll be writing in most of the time). Trace the width of Book 2 and give it a little bit of wiggle room. You DON'T want it too tight.

I use a clip to hold the second book upright for the picture, but you won't need anything like that. Just use a pencil or a pen to trace the width.

(* Book 1 is the book that you will constantly be referencing or writing in. In the case of the Double-Fold Bible, I put the bible there since I knew that my friend would be reading it a lot. Book 2 would be where he would write his questions and comments.

STEP 2:

With a sturdy ruler and an razor-knife, cut Book 1 at the line you just traced. I used a small cutting board under the book since I didn't want my desk marked up.

It's very important to leave plenty of room on this cut.

If you plan on adding pictures to Book 1 (for a travel-journal or perhaps a scrapbook), you will want to add half the width that you measured so that when the pages bulk up it won't strain the spine that you're creating.



When you place the two books together, there should be a little bit of an over-hang of Book 1's cut cover.













STEP 3:
To connect Book 1 and Book 2 you need a flexible binder. I used the Handy Man's Secret Weapon: Duct Tape. You could use cloth tape (aka: athletic tape) if you wanted a different look on the spine.

Scotch Tape, Masking Tape or anything that's cellophane-based won't work as its flexibility will eventually wear out.









Step 4:

Cut the strip of Duct-Tape in half (by width) and apply it to connect the back cover of book 2 and the cut cover of book 1. However, you want to leave a little "wiggle" room here as well so the books open smoothly.














COMPLETE:
Once you have taped the two books together it should look something like this.

The spine of Book 2 should line up with the edges of the pages of Book 1. If you wanted, you could attach some kind of closure mechanism (elastic or a tie) to hold the two books closed if you want.

For the purposes of this project I didn't add any closure as the books are so small they'll not need any. For a full-scale double-fold, I would recommend an elastic band around the middle or on the edge (like a Moleskine)

If you don't like what the inside of the newly bound double-fold looks like, I would recommend that you add a decorative end-page that would stretch from the last page of Book 2 to the first page of Book 1.

For the purposes of this project I didn't bother with covering the composition books. If I were finishing the project completely, I would grab construction or scrapbooking paper to cover it.

For more information on how to recover a notebook, see my earlier post.

Edit (6/20/09): The concept of the double-fold notebook can be used for a number of different functions. Double-fold books are a few-hundred years old by design. They were originally created to enclose both a journal and reference book under one cover. The most commonly found example is that of a medical journal.

So let's say that you have two books in one: the book on the left (often folded up against the one on the right) is not accessed as often. In medical journals of the time, it was where the physician (or other scientist) would record their proven formulas or concoctions that were effectual against given symptoms. The book on the right, more commonly accessed because of the design, would be a series of running entries about what medical cases they came across; essentially a "chart" for all of their clients as they were seen.

If you were using it for research, the left book could be used to record all of your formula or other established tools for your work and the other could be used to record your progress.

Good luck.

Photo-cover journal

I found a cool tutorial video on how to make a perfect-bound book with photographs and scrap paper. Very cool trick.

-T

Click on the image for the link

Notebookism.Com

Once again, I'm featured on Notebookism.com.

This time it's for the blog entry, "Putting a new cover on an old notebook"

Everyone has their 'thing' that they do. Mine has been and ever-shall-be, books. :)

-Tom

Pocket Flap Construction

This is part two of a project to put a new cover on an old notebook. In this section I'll discuss the process of creating a pocket flap to store loose bits of papers that always seem to accumulate themselves in my notebook. The original post can be found here.

1) Take the ruler and align it to the long edge of the page. Take your bone folder or butter knife and score a line to make the fold cleaner. It doesn't have to be the width of a ruler but it's an easy measure to make.
2) Center the page on the back (or front ) of the book's cover and eyeball about a quarter inch in from both sides. Use the butter knife or bone folder and score a line with the ruler.

3) where the bottom fold and the edge folds meet, cut out the bottom square. Once this is done, angle the top with a secondary cut that's about a quarter-inch higher than the bottom fold.

4) Using the ruler, mark quarter inch lines on the side-flaps and accordion fold it. It's the folds that allow the pocket flap to 'open' slightly when you reach in for things.

5) Make sure you fold the flap so that it's bent away from you first, then back and forth until the last fold opens 'out' of the pocket, not in.

6) Using some elmer's glue-all, glue the bottom fold onto the back (or front) cover of the notebook.
7) Using the same white glue, spread it on the bottom of the two accordion folds and press it against the cover. There you have it, a pocket flap.

Re-made Book

Everyone knows of my addiction for notebooks and one of the many quests that fill my days is to find or make a notebook that suits my needs. It is for this reason that I have learned bookbinding and studied manuscript production of the medieval era - so that I could understand not only how books were constructed but why they took the size and shape they did. To this end, yet another project is sacrificed upon the altar of BOOK.

1) The first step was to take a regular graph paper (4 squares to the inch) notebook (from office max) and cut it down to a size 3 (roughly one sheet of paper folded in half). I matched the top edge for the first cut so that would make it easier for my printer. Thankfully, they don't mind doing my cutting for free since I'm the only hand bookbinder for several states and it takes them under a minute.
2) Next I took a piece of scrapbooking paper (usual size is 12 inches by 12 inches) and folded it in half. This would cover the front of the notebook and cover the original design.

3) Since the notebook is now 5.5 inches wide, there's enough of an over-hang to easily cover all of the surfaces with enough to tuck under.

4) To glue the paper down, I used some Elmer's glue all (thy name be praised) and some pop-cycle sticks. The sticks are so you can spread the glue out very thinly on the page. If you keep it too thick, the paper and the notebook cover will warp from the moisture and you'll have glue tripping out all over the edges and no one likes drippy edges.

5) Turn the notebook over and align the new cover page with the black strip that covers the spine of the book. Since that is designed by the company to be flexible, I'm not going to bother covering it and a black spine looks pretty nifty for a notebook. Align the page and draw an outline of the cover with a pencil. (Marker used for photographic purposes)

6) Lock the cats in the basement.

7) Apply a thin layer of glue to the cover page inside the lines you've drawn and set it on the front of the notebook. I normally match up the line to the edge of the spine strip and then press it out to the corners. This way you don't have a gap that shows the black and white marbling below.

8) Once I was happy with the setting of the cover page, I glued and turned the three edges leaving the last corners unglued so I could cut them for the last fold.

9) Angle the cut of the last fold so it doesn't create a lump on the edge of the book. Just eyeball it.

10) Once you're done it should look like this.

11) Since I want to provide some stability for the flimsy notebook, I added an half-page (a one-sided, end page) to cover the folds of the new cover. Just take a piece of card stock and fold it in half. Apply a thin layer of glue to the edge and the center of the half-page and set it in place. It may not be exactly the full size of the notebook cover so just eyeball it.

12) So, this is one side of the newly recovered notebook. This shows the three stages we've done so far. Original, cut and now re-covered.

13) Since I like to label my journals, I attached one to the front of the new notebook. To do this, I take the label and a ruler for spacing.

14) Rather than measure this and that for the front cover, what I did was to simply use the ruler as a standard width where I could align the label.

15) Well, this is the conclusion of the first phase of the notebook re-covering. Do the exact same thing (save the label) for the back. I'll add more information about how to attach a pocket flap and a belly band later.

Learn how to make the pocket flap in part two.

-Tom

Scorch-Journal

scorch-05
Originally uploaded by Green Pilgrim.

This is a size-1 journal that's 1 1/4" thick. I tried a new leather-distressing technique called scorching. I love the feel of it.

It's such a brick. :)

Look here for a nice, big image of the book. I'm quite pleased.
-Me

Last Night's Cure for Insomnia

Ok, so last night I could not sleep. I was up until midnight just bee-bopping around the net doing this and that when I got bitten by the Bookbinding bug.

Correction, I got chomped on. There was tissue disruption and skin was missing from that little bugger.

I heard a voice in my head ask, "Can you make a soft-covered, double-fold journal that's a size one?" Yes, heard it. Not in the "I hear voices in my head" way but in the more divine sense of an angel or devil (or grigori) whispering to me like a muse.

The process was fairly simple since I already had the two, size 1 blanks ready for me on a shelf from who-knows when. With the last of my scored leather, I started the process as you would normally and scored a fold at the edge of the interior book's cover to create a natural hinge.


Once that was fairly well set, I added the second blank and pressed it under weight for the night. This morning, I added the elastic and pressed it again to fix the shape of the book.

I have no idea if this design is usable since not many of my clients (or fellow addicts) like using a size one (a quarter of the size of a normal sheet of paper) . I will have to try it out once I finish the books that I'm using now.

Envelope Book

From Instructables:

The idea is that you can fill it up with all sorts of things you want to keep safe. It has a ribbon marker and would be perfect for organizing monthly receipts, check stubs, coupons, extra money and basically any other flat objects you might want to file in an attractive manner.

When I saw this I immediately thought of a book that someone could use to store leaf specimens and wild flowers or even seeds or seed packets.

The block is simply stab-bound together so it can expand to fit whatever it is that you cram into the various pockets of the envelopes.

A very neat idea that I might have to try sometime.

-Tom

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Journal

Ok, so I have been reading up on the Jules Verne style of the old Steam-Pulp stories. When I got a copy of the movie I saw that there was something unique in the props for the character of the Professor; his journal.

Immediately I sprang to work on tearing apart how it's made. Like an arrow from a bow, I snagged some screen shots and thanks to some photoshop work I think they're clear enough I can tear apart the design.

The first thing that I saw was that it has a snap closure on a flap that folds over the journal's cover; not an uncommon feature since you want to protect the pages and such.

The left cover, apparently wooden, is longer than the pages by almost six to seven inches. This extra width in the board to cover not only the pages but also the small 'box' that's attached to the rear board.

This 'box' is designed to hold ink wells and dip pens - the most common writing medium of the film's period. I have a better picture of what the box looks like below but for now let's concentrate on how the designer has incorporated it into the cover.

Two hinged flaps extend from the head and the foot of the rear cover that can fold over the box presumably to protect it from wear and tear.
The two flaps, somewhat shown here in a capture that I tried to blow up large enough to see, just fold over the 'box' or 'tray' of writing materials and the actual closure flap would close off the third side with the paper covering the fourth.



The character of the professor is shown opening the head and foot flaps so that he can access the ink wells and dip pens in the open box / tray inside.


The pages of the journal almost look like they're stab-bound. A stab-bound journal would seem to make sense since you're basically writing things in it that will be pulled out and later organized into whatever research you're working on. I would almost say that this design of journal is more like a captain's log.



This is the good shot of what the inside of the journal looks like. The writing tray has the two ink wells and a few dip pens for writing. You can clearly see the tab that extends out of the head of the rear cover as well as the closure flap that would close over the front board.

I like that in this case, they covered the tabs with some marbled paper and the tray is apparently felted.

The Green Pilgrim Journals

Ok, how cool is it that my books have been shown on an internationally viewed blog?

AWESOME

I'm still doing my happy dance.

Click on the icon above to go to their site.

The weird thing is that the journals that they mentioned (on Notebookism - thy name by praised), were cardboard covered books I made as a cheaper alternative to leather covers. One of their contributors saw it on Flickr and asked for permission to post it.

I for see some binding in my near future.

Woo Hoo!!!

Go me!

-Tom

*Snicker* Monk Journal

From Etsy

Reminiscent of days gone by, this 5" x 7 1/2" x 2" thick book is sure to delight. 200 sheets (400 pages) are hand torn with a deckle edge and hand bound with geniune waxed sinew thread. The pages are 100 % cotton laid paper-just beautiful! The book closes with two heavy duty snaps hidden under the nickel buckle straps. This is the perfect book for the person who desires and needs a fine handcrafted book to house their reflections, ideas, dreams, goals or whatever you like to record on paper!

This size monk journal is the smallest seen in the last photo listed.

It's $100.00

And people buy this?

-Gah!

U. of Indiana Bookbinding Site

I came across this link from Notebookism. It's a great "how-to" site for how to make a book.

Click here to go to the University of Indiana's site.

"One of the best ways to illustrate book construction is to make one from raw materials. So that is what we will do in this section of the manual. We use some special shop tools, but since obviously not everyone has them, every attempt has been made to offer instructions for doing this with hand tools everyone is likely to have at home or can obtain without difficulty."

Ahh, my Peeps are out there and helping spread the infection. :)

Reflections of a Hobby

9:00 a.m. Well, it's sometimes amazing the things that I find on my computer. This morning, while deleting some pictures of cats and other bits of blog-fodder, I found this image. The original picture is of Rusty, my cat, sleeping on the edge of my love seat under a window.

When I looked at the image more closely, I could see that there was a reflection in the window of what was on the table in front of the seat. The unmistakable outline of a journal was visible on the right of the image and a few blanks, ready to be fit with a cover, was on the left. I can only guess that the journal is something that I made for Chris because I didn't keep any of the journals I made around the time the pic was taken.

Heh.

Strange things ya find in your computer or around the house.

Notebook, Journal, Diary, Addiction, Reflection

Diet Pepsis - 0 (Yea!), Situps - 80 (ok, so it was half in the morning and half in the evening), Pushups - 30 (Yeah, I know, I suck).

I found an old pic of Notebook 3 and decided to post it here. I started to number the "field books" recently when I started the fourth book. I know which order the books were used and anyone who read through them could quickly tell by the dates on the entries, but I wanted to identify them a bit more clearly on the cover.



I've kept a regular "journal" since I started college back in 1990. Prior to that I tried to several times, but never anything consistent. The journals fizzled out when I was in grad school because I thought I was too busy. After a while the journal became transformed into more of a notebook of ideas rather than a record of my thoughts. Once I started to make books in ernest, the idea notebooks were more than just a spiral-bound book in a leather book-jacket; god I love that thing - it's on my desk still. I made books for other people to test theories and techniques and finally kept one for myself.

Though I keep a blog to let my friends know what's going on in my life, my journal is more of the day-to-day record of things. Like Da Vinci who sketched ideas on anatomy and physics side-by-side with grocery lists, my pages encompass an ongoing "Journal of a Pilgrim" as well as thoughts on meta-physics, philosophy, theology, and other oddities.

Those who read this blog (or the new location) would say, "Sure, ok, and?"

People who keep notebooks, diaries or journals of various sort are usually a fairly particular breed of person. When people see me carrying around my notebook where I go and give me a strange look I know that they would probably not fully fathom why I carry it. Those who "carry" know their own. I've only met a few people who, when they see my notebook, instantly gravitate towards me since they carry one of their own.

A few of my really good friends have been those who understand my 'notebook obsession' because they have it as well. I remember a moment with a good friend where we were making a book-jacket for our notebooks. There we were, two grown adults, sitting around my dining room table with scissors and brown-bag paper and cutting the jackets out. They were made to look like the Grail Diary from Professor Henry Jones Sr., but wrapped as a parcel. Nothing was really said to commorate the moment, but at sometime through it I looked up and realized the level of geekness and just smiled.

It was a good moment.

I love those kinds of moments and have begun taking steps in life to ensure that more will happen in the future than has happened in the past.

Books and Latex

First, get your mind out of the gutter!

Second, check out this website where someone has begun to make a latex cover for the Necronomicon.

New Book Done

New Book done and posted over on the Lonely Road Journal site.

Bookbinding You Tube

I found these videos on You Tube.

• Perfect Binding


• Japanese Bookbinding (1)


• Japanese Bookbinding (2)


• Japanese Bookbinding (3)


• Paperbacking Silk