I cut the paper for my books with a butter knife. Seriously.

Daniel took this photo of me a few years ago. I'm tearing down pages for a book at the kitchen table. You can see the bonefolder and the non serrated butter knife that I got from the thrift store. This is how I cut my paper down for years. Last year, I called around to a few places to price out paper and found a company I could buy wholesale from. I was talking with the salesman on the phone while he looked up prices for me. So he was just making conversation as the computer was loading the information for 1000 sheets of Mohawk Superfine that are 25" x 38"

Salesman: We usually deliver to large companies. You say you're out of your home?
Me: Yes, I sell handmade books online and I just work from my home.
Salesman: What do you use to cut down all that paper?
Me: I cut it at my kitchen table with a butter knife.
Salesman: (after a pause) I'll have to call you back since I don't have the prices right on hand.

He never called back. It wasn't until later that I figured out that he probably thought I was a prank call or something. I found a different company to work with though and I'm very pleased with them.

I've also recently switched over to a tear bar and I've been so happy with it! I still use the butterknife occasionally but I could never go back to make hundreds of books with it again.

Essential Bookbinding Tools

Essential Bookbinding Tools

Bonefolder- This is used for creating sharp creases when folding pages. It also has many other uses when bookbinding. Bonefolders are most often made from the leg bone of a cow or deer. Randy J. Arnold has even made some from Gabon Ebony. Someday I'd like to own one of his beautiful bone folders.

Most bone folders cost somewhere between $4.50 and $9 USD. If you want a special one, you'll have to pay more. There are also teflon folders which won't leave any marks on your paper as bone sometimes will. I can't fork out $30 for a teflon folder though and I really like the feel of the bone. So for now, I'll stick with the traditional ones.

There are also plastic bonefolders (not teflon) and you can buy them for fairly cheap but if you're really going to venture into the world of books, I suggest buying a real bone.

Rulers- All I'm going to say about this, is that you need a metal edge ruler. If you try to make straight cuts with your exacto knife against a plastic ruler, you will take slices or chunks out of your ruler. It's also important to have a ruler with small markings that show at least 16th of an inch.

Bookbinding Awl- This awl is not the one you find in your typical toolbox. The bookbinding awl is thinner. It's the same diameter as a sewing needle which allows the holes you punch to be sewn through without a lot of movement of the pages, or large holes in your pages. I just broke my first bookbinding awl. It wasn't a great awl and it was really inexpensive but I was sad. Mostly for sentimental reasons. I plan on doing a video demonstration on how to make your own bookbinding awl. It's fairly simple, and then maybe you won't feel so bad if you break one in the future. For now, I use a sharp metal stylus which is fairly close to the same size as my needle. It was in my ceramics kit from a college class and it's been very useful, especially when it comes to putting holes through bookboard or leather. Just a note, if you ever think you'd like to save money by buying a student awl (the ones with the blue plastic handles) Don't! They're awful and they might not even make it through one punched hole. I think we went through 20 in my last bookbinding class before I decided just to make everyone an awl. Daniel made all the students awls and they worked wonderfully.

Needles - I use a size 1 darning needle which works great for my 3 ply and 4 ply linen thread. There are blunt needles as well but I like to use the sharp ones. I don't know why. I also use curved 1.5" upholstery needles for use on coptic stitch and occasionally when sewing cord bound books.

Xacto type knife - I use two different blades right now. One is an xacto knife and the other is a utility snap off blade. The utility blade is great for cutting bookboard by hand but if I'm carving into the bookboard for insets or carving designs for raised leather then I prefer to use an xacto knife because it has more flex to the blade then the utility knife and allows for easier cutting when creating curves. The xacto blades cost more than the cheap snapoff blade. For the last few years, I've been stealing my xacto blades from my dad's "lifetime supply" and I don't think he realizes he now no longer has a "life time supply". Sorry dad, I'll replace them!

Pencil and archival pen - I use pencils to help mark my bookboard or holes on my punching template and I use a pen when creating shapes on the cover for embossed hinges or raised designs. If you are concerned about something being archival, make sure that your pen is archival. I use Micron brand pens, simply because I happen to have a bunch in my drawing supplies.

Balloons - Yes, I do think of it as an essential bookbinding tool. Sometimes, you may have a difficult time grasping the needle and the balloon helps me to grip the needle tightly. I learned this from some awesome quilters at a Church activity (a Rexburg 4th Ward Relief Society "Super Saturday"). Balloons were instantly in my toolbox after that.

Non-Serrated Butter Knife - Carla Jimison taught me this trick. You can buy a non-serrated butter knife from the thrift store for 25 cents and they work just as well as the fancy paper knives that cost $16. Whenever I'm at Deseret Industries, I check for these and buy as many as I can so we can use them in my classes. You might even have one in your kitchen drawer. I had a man borrow one from his wife's china cabinet during a class I did. I hope she's ok with that. This type of knife gives the paper softer edges than if I were to use an Xacto blade on it. You can use whatever you'd like to cut your paper but I prefer to use this or a tearing bar. My tearing bar isn't photographed but you can view it online on Amazon. We use both sides for cutting paper and I love the length of it as I usually end up tearing down large sheets for my text paper. While a tear bar isn't essential, once you use one, you'll find that it is!

Hole Punch - I use a hole punch for a few different styles of books. In the photograph you can see my old metal tool punch that I would use with a hammer. The tips would wear down very quickly and it was really a pain (and very noisy!) so I purchased a tool called the Crop-A-Dile. It cuts through bookboard nicely and has two different sizes of hole punches. It also does other things like set eyelets and snaps. I really want the Crop-A-Dile II which is called the "Big Bite" as it will allow you to place a hole more than 1" from an edge. This is the only complaint I have about the first crop-a-dile, as it is limited punching a hole within one inch from the edge. You can also get a Japanese Screw Punch and this link takes you to one on Amazon. It's the most inexpensive one I've come across as they usually average $60. They're handy, especially for traveling.

The other essential tools:

Wax paper for placing between pages and cover when gluing so that the pages don't get all gunked up.

Sand paper for smoothing down rough edges on bookboard.

Brushes for gluing. I have several different sizes and I use them all. I also have not purchased a nice bookbinders glue brush as I tend to forget to wash them out and ruin them. So cheap brushes work great for me. 

Clamps- I use clamps when I'm gluing covers or trying to position a book or rounding a spine. I have a variety of sizes that are all used for different books.

Cutting Mat- You can buy a nice cutting mat that's 24" x 36" like mine is (thank you mom for the 50% off coupon to Robert's) or you can just use a piece of cardboard or extra bookboard as a cutting surface. 

And the last thing on my essentials list is a flea comb. Yes. I'm serious. We picked up a couple of these from our local Walmart. They happened to be in the clearance section for 50 cents (hooray!) so we picked up two of them. They are marvelous for thinning out the cords and fraying them to glue down. Before, I was using my needle and fingernails to separate and fray the cords. We moved from that to forks and we were using that until we came across the flea combs. I didn't want to spend a bundle on a metal brush for this so I'm so glad we found a very cheap alternative. I have no complaints yet about this awesome tool and ever since I have been using the comb, it's become essential. 

When I do classes, I provide a kit which includes a balloon, needle, awl, bonefolder, glue brush and sandpaper. I also bring my stash of nonserrated butter knives. 

To all the bookbinders, is there a tool that I did not mention that you find an essential part of your bookbinding toolbox?

Burning into Leather

I received a wood burner for my birthday a few months ago and I've been putting it to good use. I just finished making a journal for myself with a really neat burned in spine. I'll make another post about that next week. This photo below shows the woodburner. It's a Colwood "CUB" and works wonderfully.

I'll give you a preview of some of the things I've done with it.

This book has a skeleton key with an ivy type plant burned in around the border. I really just had fun the other night making this one. This book is also for sale in my shop right now.

This photograph below shows a date that I burned into the leather strap. Two identical books were made and the date was the wedding anniversary of the couple that received the books.

These were made for two brothers who love to draw and their mother said that one of her sons was very picky about the paper he used in his sketchbooks so we put in Rives BFK. I hope he enjoys using that :)

This was a recent order. I antiqued the moose onto the journal cover and then burned in the name on the lower right corner.

This is one my dad (Rett Ashby) did and we sold it in my ETSY shop. The sketch was done on a darker leather. It's best seen by enlarging the photo by clicking on it.

This one below was also a custom order. I burned the children's faces onto the leather from photographs. The book actually wasn't stitched yet when this photo was taken but it was a long stitch with the exposed thread on the spine and the faces were on the wrap around part of the cover.

This was a custom order in which I burned in "David's Genius Ideas."

I've tried burning into sealed leather and it sort of carves away the leather instead of leaving a burned mark. None of the leathers above were sealed but the last photo of David's Genius Ideas shows a leather that was coated and it was also an oil tanned leather, so it left a lighter area around the burned letters where the sealant was heated or melted away. You can see that the burning really shows up on lighter leathers well like the chrome tanned one of the kids faces.

I've recently found some vegetable tanned lambskin though (some is available in my shop) and I'm excited because it burns really well and it is not sealed so I can antique it and get different looks from it. I'm really excited to be able to use it on cord bound books and get an old book look.

Hopefully I'll have some done in about a week to show you.

Thanks Dad and Mom for the fun Birthday Present!

New Sewing Frame

This past week, Daniel made a sewing frame for me. I've been doing all my cord bound books without a sewing frame. (I can just hear all the gasping from all you book artists!) It was a pain but doable and worked ok. The sewing frame is so much nicer to work with though and results in straighter cords.

I found the instructions for how to make a sewing frame while reading a book from the library by Josep Cambras. It's titled The Complete Book of Bookbinding. I found it's a great book for any bookbinder's library. You can read my book review below the photos of the sewing frame and the book I sewed on it this morning.




Book Review: The Complete Book of Bookbinding by Josep Cambras

I wouldn't say that it's the "complete" book because really, it skims the surface of several different techniques and processes of bookbinding. It can give a beginning/intermediate bookbinder an idea of the bookbinding world and the tools used in it. It provides a brief history of bookbinding which really was brief but still worth the read and the beautiful photographs of old books. It shows the tools of the trade and goes through the process of binding a book, gold tooling the cover, doing raised spines, making boxes and even shows a few artistic books at the back. It really skims the surface on several things but gives you a start with enough know-how so that you can continue your search on bookbinding elsewhere. It gives instructions for making a sewing frame from home, but it failed to give us directions on how to set the cords up and actually use the sewing frame. (We found the instructions elsewhere online for this and we used nails instead of expensive sewing keys which worked quite well.)

Overall, this book would be great for someone who is interested in the bookbinding world or for those who would like instructions on how to make a sewing frame.