Dummy Book

After putting this off for literally 2 weeks (because I kept changing my mind about what I wanted to put in it), I finally did my first test bind! I have never bound a book before, so I went with a simple Japanese stab bind. Of course, it looked pretty simple, but I had no idea how to do it, so I went to YouTube to become enlightened. I found a very helpful video (1) that showed the steps simply, and basically just followed that. There are over 100 pages in my book, and I read that once you are over 64-ish pages, you should use the Perfect Binding technique, but I wanted to give this a try anyway (and also, it is just a dummy!)

First, I had to make a template sheet, by folding paper and marking the places where I wanted to punch the holes. Then I used a push pin to make the holes (pushing it against an eraser was a fantastic tip from the comments in the video!) I had to do this in sections because there were so many pages, so I did about 5 rounds of this. The final book won’t have as many pages, because they will be printed double-sided, whereas in this mock up all the pages are single sided (so that I could change the order), and glued together.

I’m quite happy with how it came out, but the thread is very thin (as it was a test, I just used sewing cotton thread that I had on hand), and I didn’t pull it tight enough in some areas. Also, it was a bit hard to thread because the pin holes were really small, and I had to force the needle through so many pages. But as a first attempt, I have to say I am pretty proud of it! I don’t envision using this type of binding for my final book, but as a quick little mockup it certainly does the job. I chose to bind it using red string to keep with the theme of the book, and this is an element that I want to use in my final product as well.

Here is the video on how to do this style of binding. I used technique number 1.

(1) Spirit, 2016, DIY - Notebook: Japanese bookbinding || Back to School, video, viewed 01 June 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Snjfao47DI>