Making a sketch book.
I go through a lot of sketch books, more than one a month, sometimes one a week, usually I just buy the regular books with 110 gsm (ordinary) cartridge paper, they are cheap and are adequate for dry work. At the moment I'm doing a project that requires my using black and mid toned paper. I've had a look at the prices of black sketchbooks locally and found that even spiral bound sketch books start at about $20 – there's no way in hell I'm paying that for a book that won't last more than a couple of weeks.
So I had a look around and found that I can go to a local stationary supplier (think kinko's in the US) and they'll spiral (wire) bind your choice of paper for a few dollars, I've used this choice before when I've wanted watercolor pads, that way I could get a (350+ gsm) pad of good paper for $15-20, a savings of $20-30. But that's not the point of this post, in this case the weight of the paper isn't so critical. So I'll show a cheap and easy way to make a sketch book using everyday supplies.
When I studied jewelry a few years ago we actually covered book binding as part of the course, as a result there were lot's of weird & wonderful sketchbooks floating about on that course, We did study traditional European bookbinding, but that is a rather time consuming process and requires some tools that many people don't have. Thus I was attracted to oriental book binding techniques, and in particular the butterfly book. The way that they are traditionally made only makes every second page fully usable, My technique is a work around for that problem. This sketchbook won't hold up to really rough treatment the way that a regular hard cover book will, but it won't fall apart under normal use either.
This is pretty similar to how the moleskin books I've seen are made (but about 1/20th the price).
Right, into it. I've decided to make an A5 size sketchbook.
What you need;
(1). Paper for the sketchbook (obviously) – here I'm using A3 size black paper.
(2). Card for the covers – this is A5 size card, it's 1100 microns (about 1/16th of an inch).
(3). Glue – this is wood glue, aka PVA, alphatic glue, etc. I make no recommendations on brand as it's all much the same.
(4). Duct tape (of course).
(5). Marker pen – I actually used a white coloring pencil, but you get the idea.
(6). Box cutter with a sharp blade.
(7). Metal ruler.
(8 ). A bit of sandpaper (optional).
(9). Cutting board – also a clipboard – the clipboard makes things ten times easier, so it's highly recommended.
(10). Contact glue (optional).
Also needed;
A piece of regular paper to glue on the spine – the length of the spine by about 2” wide – enough to cover the spine plus at least 1/2” on the front & back.
Some type of weight to hold stuff down & still, use what you have.
A flat work surface with a square edge (kitchen bench).
Some wax paper is useful, but not totally essential.
That looks like quite a shopping list, but all that's really essential is paper, glue & a sharp knife. The other stuff just makes it easier.
Stage 1.
Here I've lined up the pages to be trimmed down and marked the top one (I folded it then marked the crease). It's now held in place with the clip of the clip board and I'm about to clamp the ruler in place to act as a guide for cutting.
I'm making an A5 size book, so I'm cutting the pages down to A4 size – they'll be folded to make A5 size.
When I've chopped the pages down to A4 size;
I line up the pages and use the ruler and knife again to trim off any rough edges – this stage isn't essential, I'm just a bit obsessive about straight edges.
Now I individually fold each page and stack them up.
In the above shot I've lined them up neatly and put a wee bit of masking tape at either side to keep them lined up and still, Be sure to tape it about an inch back from the edge to allow room for gluing, I had to move the tape after this shot. It's essential that the folded edges all line up exactly, if they're out of line the book will come apart later.
Now I put the spine of the book at the edge of the 'bench', and move onto the gluing.
Sorry about the piss poor photo, I wasn't looking at them as I was going.
Here the spine has been glued liberally and the glue rubbed into the spine, use plenty of glue, but not enough that it drips, it's hard to use too much, but too little and the book won't hold together.
On the right you can see the piece of paper that I am gluing in order to place over the spine. again use plenty of glue, the glue needs to be fairly thick, the only thing that's holding the book together is glue, so don't be shy.
in the next shot I've placed the paper strip over the spine;
How I did this was to let the spine of the book hang about an inch out over the edge of the bench and apply the glued paper to the underside of the book, then put the book back onto the bench fully and taken the ruler.
Then I placed the ruler onto the top of the spine and applied pressure to compress the spine. Then I brought the glued paper up the spine and laid it down over the top. it's easier than it sounds.
I pressed down any loose bits of the glued paper & made sure that it had contact over it's whole surface, then I wrapped some wax paper around the book and put it under something heavy for a while for the glue to start drying (and typed this to here).
Right, now you have a functional book, if you leave it to dry it will be usable, though a little fragile and flimsy with just the paper spine & without covers, so here's how to put the covers on.
First I liberally apply glue to the cover (outside page) of the book and make sure it's well covered. This glue is fairly transparent, so I'm using plenty. I have the spine towards myself as it's easier to line up that way.
Then I take the piece of card I've selected for the cover and stand it up at the spine so that it lines up with the edge of the spine. Then I just lay it down and apply decent pressure to secure it. I open the book and press it down from the other side of the end page making sure it's mated properly and that there's no bubbles.
When I've done one end I flip the book over and do the same from the other side, if there's any bit's of glued paper showing I trim them off and clean it up.
Then I take a piece of duct tape the same length as the spine;
I do the same as when I glued the paper strip to the spine, I apply it to one side (to one cover) and then place the book down, apply pressure with the ruler and bring the tape up and over tightly to the other side. Someone who gives a rats ass will prolly line the tape up better than I did (different widths at each cover).
Again I wrap wax paper around the book & place it under something heavy & flat for the glue to settle down. The glue doesn't need to fully dry in order to go on with the making, it just needs some time for the moisture to soak into the respective paper surfaces and thus make the glue tackier, you do need to be a bit careful till it's fully dried though.
This is a fully finished book, but I'm still not satisfied, the edges of the pages don't line up perfectly, thus I'm going to clamp the book down again and give the pages a bit of a trim using the ruler & box cutter. Same routine as at the start. You can sand paper the edges a bit if they're not dead smooth.
It's now good as finished, I decided to duct tape the edges as they would wear rather quickly, and thus got this;
And there we have it, a completed sketch book, to buy this from a shop locally would have been about $25 for a book that had black paper, has the same number of pages (60), wasn't wire bound and was A5 in size. This one cost me $3 in paper and card, and maybe 50 cents in glue & tape. a wee bit of a savings, it took about 30 min of actual working time (not counting the time to let bits dry).
But I don't really feel this book, it's kinda dull. It's not... well, prettyful.
I like the duct tape, duct tape's prettyful, but the covers a little dull, I think I could perhaps fix this with a little spray paint (any excuse).
So I mask off the duct tape bits with masking tape and start to think about what I could do with it, This logically led me to use a rat on the book. After all they're prettyful. I sprayed the cover black and the edges of the pages gold, the latter just cos it's traditional. and let that dry off.
And then I sprayed a wee rat in a snowstorm, it's got fuzzy feet, but the books only going to last a few weeks before I make another, so whatever.
And the final step that I do in the making of one of these books is to contact glue a wee chunk of sandpaper in to the back cover of the book, this is for sharpening pencils and other such tasks. I usually glue it to the inside of the cover as I don't want it to be sandpapering my cell phone or stuff when it's in my bag. You could also add an elastic band to keep it closed, I don't bother personally.
And then it's finished.
Later in the tutorial the author also said:
"It opens up fairly flat, this ones a bit thick for that, still fine for drawing, if you make it thinner, like 20 pages then it'll open up totally flat every second page. the other pages are held together just by a thin strip of glue & the spine, so it's not a great idea to force it flat on those openings, not aggressively anyhow. If I'm doing stuff for scanning I usually work on loose bits of paper rather than a sketchbook, but these do scan okay. If you're only like 5 pages into a 60 page book it won't be flat though for the simple reason that one side's like 11 times thicker than the other side. It's no worse than a regular hard cover sketch book though.
Working with certain media (like marker pens) I'll only use every second page, I make books for that a bit differently. Instead of stacking them and gluing the spine I glue a strip about 1/2" wide at the fold of each section (time consuming) and then stack them glued one by one - so that only every second page opens properly. They tend to be a bit more robust that way and lay flatter at every second page."
And for a final option, if you need something more official, check this out: http://www.Michaelshannon.us/makeabook/
A big thanks to Goblin for ingenuity and putting in all the work in to put this on the internet. If you want to thank him/her yourself, log in to SR and send him/her a PM.
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