After making a couple of instructive videos on sewing books, I was going to make a tutorial video of sewing headbands, but I realized that I could make a tutorial of rounding and backing as I had to do it, before the headbanding anyhow. So, here it is. I hope this video is useful for beginners in bookbinding. Rounding and backing are sort of "minor" tasks in bookbinding that beginners might omit. However, they are very important. For those of you who want to create a real book, round your book, eh? All you need is a freaking hammer and a minute of your time! Oh, yeah, by the way...... I misspelled "endsheet" once on the video... I CAN correct it and re-upload the video, but, nah, I ain't gonna do it... my internet connection isn't as "super fast" as most people's, so for this 10 minute video, it took about 50 min. to upload! Duh! So, let's call the misspelling a charm** :-)
NOTE: The hammer used on this video is not a
backing hammer, which indeed is THE tool to back and round books. But as my
purpose of creating these tutorial videos is to encourage general population to
start getting involved in the bookbinding trade, I always try to demonstrate
things with ordinary items as much as possible, so that it doesn't discourage
viewers from trying it just because they don't have the particular equipment to
do the job. The methods featured on my tutorial videos are very basic and often
I have to change a little in order to make it more feasible to the beginners.
So it should not reflect the real trade of bookbinding. Yet my instructions are
thought through so that the end result will be perfectly decent if you follow
them.
I do like your blog, it is really wonderful.
ReplyDeleteI am new with bookbinding and it hasn’t been a long time since I realize that it is an art.
I have two questions – to do things the right way do all the books have to be rounded and backed? Is there a minimal thickness for a book to be rounded and backed?
Thank you and keep up with your good work.
Pedro
Hi Pedro,
DeleteThank you for your compliment. To answer your questions, yes, I must highly recommend you to round or back your book for the reasons I've mentioned on the video. In terms of "a minimal thickness" required for rounding and/or backing, it's not really a matter of how thick the book is, but how many signatures it has. To round or back a book, the book should at least & ideally have several signatures in order for the proportion to be just. The book can be a quarter of an inch in thickness and still can be nicely rounded/backed if it contains enough signatures. Let me know if you still have questions. :-) MHR
You make it look very easy! I'm having trouble rounding the photo albums I've made recently, I'm using thick card stock - would that be why? I seem to have to really hit them hard and I have trouble getting an even shape. Can I ask, is there any reason why you cant shape the spine before gluing, so that it is nicely rounded, then glued, then use a hammer to coax it further if needed?
ReplyDeleteHello,
DeleteYes, because the paper is very heavy, and the number of signatures is not many, the rounding is relatively difficult.
If you try to round the spine before setting it with glue, the edges tend to get disarrayed and the sewing could get loose. But for a photo album with thick card stock papers, you should probably round it before gluing off the spine. Make sure that the edges are nice and tidy though. Good luck on your project. :-)
Hello, great Blog you have! and realy great video's, the best on the net!
ReplyDeleteYour hammer seems perfectly for it, could you tell what brand is written on it, it?
It's a C.S. Osborne's leather working hammer.
Delete