lb101 - Logbooks and trail journals tutorial (part II)

Posted by eliza b on February 5th, 2008 filed in lb101, tutorials - bookbinding

I meant to get this up for you folks a little sooner, but we’ve been having some more Weather, capital-W, out thisaway, and it’s making picture-taking a little bit difficult. So some of the photos on this tutorial are a little fuzzy, due to light issues, but I think you should be able to see them well enough to get the gist of what I’m saying.

Last week, we yapped a little bit about how to make your own creative logbooks. The simple ways, at least. For those that are looking to do something hand-made and a little more involved, I thought I’d show y’all how I make the japanese-bound logbooks I’ve been prone to putting in my own boxes. They’re a little more labor-intense than just a plain saddle-stitch (which I’ll show you how to do next week — the pictures for that one REALLY didn’t turn out well since the covers were so dark…), but easy enough that you can whip a few up when you have an hour or two to kill, and the results look much more impressive than the effort would suggest.

SPOILER WARNING: This is going to be a LIVE LETTERBOX in the OMAHA, NE area, as soon as Mother Nature stops handing us copious amounts of snow. IF YOU ARE THE TYPE who does NOT like to see boxes or stamps before you seek them out, or you’re planning to letterbox in the OMAHA, NE area….you might want to skip this post. I don’t want to ruin your surprise!

FAIR WARNING!

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Still here?

Then THIS is what we’re going to make:

This is the logbook and stamp for the Moving City letterbox, to be placed here in Omaha in the spring of 2008. It’s part of the Weird Nebraska series, and it’s all handmade.

Japanese stab-binding is one of the easiest kinds of bookbinding to do — it takes very little time or effort in comparison to other types of “real” bookbinding, and still gives cool-looking results.

First, let’s assemble our materials:

What you’ll need:

1. a stack of papers cut to twice the length of your letterbox, folded in half and stacked as a unit with all the folded edges on one side. I use regular printer paper for this, since the pages are doubled and there’s not all that much bleed-through.
2. a dremel tool with a thin drill-bit, or an awl (a sharp pointy thing)
3. A glu-stick of some kind. I use UHU because it holds up in Weather.
4. A bone folder or dull butterknife.
5. Cardstock (not shown…it’s hiding behind the map paper)
6. Decorative paper, one sheet for most logbooks.
7. Needles. I use tapestry needles because they’re thicker and have larger eyes.
8. waxed linen thread. This is bookbinding thread, though regular waxed linen will work in a pinch, if doubled. You can get bookbinding thread at Turtle Arts for cheap, by the way.
9. A pair of pliers is optional, but helpful if you don’t have strong hands.
10. a couple of bulldog clips or clamps to hold the block together while drilling/sewing.

It seems like a long list, but there’s nothing all that out of the ordinary, if you’re already into making your own books.

Step 1: Make Your Covers

For this, just cut two pieces of cardstock just slightly larger than your folded pages. We’re talking a scant 1/8″ larger — if they’re too much larger width-wise, you’ll end up tearing it with your bookbinding thread, and the fore-edge (the part at the bottom in the finished picture) will get all raggedy with use. They need to be just slightly larger so that the book block (pages) is covered, but not so large that it screws up the sizing.

Cut two pieces of decorative paper that are around 1/4″ SMALLER than your pages, and cover the backs with the glu-stick. Center them roughly on the cardstock pieces, and rub them down well. It’s okay if they’re a little wonky — this is a letterbox, not a juried show.

STEP 2: GET THE DRILL

Sandwich your book pages between the covers. Line up the open, unfolded edges of the papers with the top/to-be-bound edge of the covers, and hold them together with the bulldog clips or clamps. You’ll want them held firmly so that you can drill/awl them easily — floppy pages make drilling not so simple.

You’re going to drill through the entire block and the covers, 1/2″ or so from each edge, and then two more holes in the middle, evenly(ish) spaced. I tend to eyeball this, but you can do the math if you want things to be precise. Mark the placement of the holes with whatever writing-implement you might have — you’ll be drilling through it and then sewing through it, so the marks won’t show.

If you’re not comfortable with the book being in your hand while you drill (or you don’t have fabulous health insurance for the puncture wounds that could occur), lay the edge against a block of scrap wood or on top of a throwaway cardboard box and drill straight down through all layers.

To recap: you’re drilling through the covers and the UNFOLDED EDGES of the book pages. The folded edges will become the NONBOUND side of the book. (In other words, the pages are all double-thickness, open at the top and bottom and folded at the fore-edge.)

STEP 3: SEWING

I am going to be the first to admit that I might be doing the sewing “wrong” by traditional japanese standards. I leave my knot and tails exposed, since I tend to tie things to the thread-ends — beads, secondary mini-books, a badger….something. Plus, I like that look.

There are about seven zillion books out there with more traditional sewings for stab-bound books, including some where the binding knots and ends are hidden from view. I’ll list those next week when I talk about saddle-stitching and other bindings, and list all the resources for hand-binding books. But for our purposes, we’re going to go with this easy way.

Now that you’ve drilled, you should have this:

(numbers added by me, of course) You have a bookblock with four holes in it.

Thread your needle with a single length of waxed bookbinding thread. Don’t worry about a knot — you’ll be tying one at the end of the sewing. The thread should be around two feet long for an average letterbox, larger if you’re doing a bigger book (duh). After you do one or two of these, you’ll see how much you need. It doesn’t use a whole lot.

Insert your needle into hole #2, and leave a long-ish tail. (About five inches or so.) Then sew in this order:

Up through hole 1. Wrap the thread around the side of the book and go back UP through hole 1 AGAIN. Wrap the thread around the top of the book and go back up through hole 1 for the THIRD TIME. Your hole might be getting snug at this point. Grab some pliers and pull it through if your hands aren’t cooperating.

Go back down through hole 2, and come up at hole 3.

Go down in hole 4. Wrap around the side, go back through 4. Wrap around the top, and make your third pass in hole 4.

Come up in hole 3, wrap around the top of the book and come up in 3 again.

Go down in hole 2.

Tie the two ends together at the top of hole 2. Cut your ends to be roughly the same, and VOILA! BOOK!

It sounds much more complicated than it is. Once you do it once or twice, you’ll be an old pro — it’s MUCH easier hands-on than to read about it.

You’re almost done, but first, the finishing touches….

STEP FOUR: FINISHING YOUR BOOK
The last thing you have to do before you decorate the book is to crease the cover a bit. Stab-binding is a bit inflexible compared to other bindings, and eats up a quarter of an inch or so of your interior papers. When you’re making blank journals or something, it’s not that big of a deal, but in letterboxes, where space is at a premium, keep in mind that your stampable area will be a little less than the size of your cut pages.

Because it’s a little rigid and cardstock doesn’t fold all that well, you’ll need to crease your cover, like so:

Using a bone-folder edge or the back edge of a butter knife (less pressure with the latter, since you don’t want to rip the cover), press a slight depression into the cover. You can put some arm in it if you’re using a bone folder — the better the crease, the better your book will open, which means the more stampable area there will be for the finders.

Crease the cover, and then open it up so that the cover folds along the crease. It should open relatively easily now, like magic.

All that’s left is to customize the book further for the letterbox it’s going to be in. I tend to put an image of the stamp on the cover (collaged on, rather than stamped on, since it doesn’t show well on the decorative papers, unless they’re blank.), and embellish around that somewhat. For the Movable City box, it was just a big red X on the map paper, which was enough to give it some interest without being too overdone.

On the inside cover, I tend to put the story of the box (if either it or the location requires some explanation), along with a link to atlasquest.com, my email address, and a note for geocachers telling them that the logbook and stamp are NOT tradable or swappable, since there’s been a rash of geocachers stealing the stamps or logbooks, thinking that they’re caches rather than letterboxes. (Hand-carved stamp does NOT equal a FLIP FLOP, people! Argh!) Like so:

And now, all that’s left is to pop that sucker in a baggie and grab those lock&locks to go plant it!

Next week: saddle stitching (much less labor-intensive) and resources.

Stay tuned!