Step by step.
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July 16, 2013, 3:52 pm
Filed under: Art, Book Conservation, Marketing, Publishing, Science Fiction, tech | Tags: art, blogging, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, jim downey, Science Fiction, technology
Filed under: Art, Book Conservation, Marketing, Publishing, Science Fiction, tech | Tags: art, blogging, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, jim downey, Science Fiction, technology
I got to thinking about all the steps/stages involved in doing the binding of the handbound editions of Communion of Dreams. Here’s a step by step description (with some images below) of the process of doing the cloth hardcover books:
- Gather the sections from the printed stacks.
- Fold each section.
- Collate the sections into books.
- Punch holes through the center of each section for sewing.
- Sew up the text blocks.
- Paste up the spine of each text block, allow to dry under mild weight.
- Trim each textblock to size: head, tail, fore-edge.
- Paste up each text block again; determine size for, cut, and add endbands.
- Determine size for, cut, then paste up and apply spine liners, allow to dry.
- Determine size for and cut bookboard for the covers: front cover, rear cover, spine.
- Determine size of necessary cover cloth, cut from roll goods.
- Layout and mark up inside of cover cloth for bookboard positions.
- Paste up and mount each piece of bookboard, nip in nipping press, allow to dry.
- Cut corners on cover cloth.
- Paste up and turn in edges & corners, nip in nipping press, allow to dry. This is now called the “cloth case”.
- Determine size and cut cover image for mounting to cloth cases.
- Position and mount cover images to cases, nip in nipping press, allow to dry.
- Trim back first paste-down sheet on front and back of each text block.
- Position text block in case, paste up sewing tapes and front half paste-down sheet, nip in nipping press.
- Repeat for rear sewing tapes and half paste-down sheet.
- Paste up front full paste-down sheet, nip in nipping press.
- Repeat for rear full paste-down sheet.
- Dry under mild weight.
Simple, right? 😉
Well, it is compared to what is involved in doing the leather-covered edition. I might spend some time doing a video version of that. We’ll see.
Oh, yeah — if you’d like to have your own hand-bound copy in either cloth or leather, full information on the limited edition is here.
Jim Downey
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[…] I got these all […]
Pingback by Want a free hand-bound, hard-cover copy of Communion of Dreams? | Communion Of Dreams July 18, 2013 @ 12:53 pmI would love a chance to win!
Comment by Paula Trueb July 18, 2013 @ 7:03 pm[…] was the name drawn from The Hat on Sunday, and she will be receiving the first of the hand-bound cloth copies of Communion of Dreams I am giving […]
Pingback by Luck of the draw. | Communion Of Dreams July 23, 2013 @ 1:54 pm[…] down, at least as far as my body was concerned. So I was able to get back to thinking about the hand-binding of Communion of Dreams, and the promotional stuff related to that. So I went ahead and scheduled […]
Pingback by “…while you’re busy making other plans.”* | Communion Of Dreams August 7, 2013 @ 2:45 pm[…] But in the end I decided that it was just that I’ve been thinking a lot about writing. About printing. About bookbinding. […]
Pingback by Printed in blood. | Communion Of Dreams August 11, 2013 @ 10:55 am[…] This is going to be a bit about this binding, and how it differs from the hardcover cloth binding. […]
Pingback by At long last … | Communion Of Dreams May 12, 2021 @ 2:44 pm[…] the sewing structure for CoD, the sewing for SCW is exactly the same as for the hand-bound hardcover edition. Since I […]
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