The way a book is bound can impact its storage,
and may or may not bring about other
complications. Considering all of the things
you want to do with books (besides read them),
there are a number of things that can go wrong:
HHC 2014 Reno, Nevada
Low Cost Book Binding 2.0
Richard Schwartz richard1941@gmail.com
Written language has been with us in various
forms since around 3400 BC in some
civilizations, and has been developed later in
other civilizations independently or by cultural
diffusion. (In one case, writing was lost, and
then re-acquired.) However, it took a long time
before books appeared. The oldest books seem
to have evolved from zigzag folding of scrolls in
the Roman civilization of the second century.
This was a great advance because, unlike rolled
scrolls, the book provided instant access to any
page. Books were invented independently in
Mesoamerica, but only a few specimens
survived the needs of the Spanish church to
replace paganism with civilization. It was not
until about 1470 that page numbers began to
appear, a practice that greatly facilitated
referencing information. Pagination spread
slowly throughout Europe and became standard
by the middle of the sixteenth century.
* Open book does not lie flat on desk or copier
window
Although a very large amount of written
literature can be carried on a flash drive, you
need a computer to read it. Computers and flash
drives are foreign products that may not always
be available. The ancient technology of ink on
paper, on the other hand, only requires the
home-grown technology of cataract and retina
surgery (for me), and some gifted young persons
may require no surgery at all to read a book.
Books can be stored for a long time and can
reach across the centuries to speak to us.
Storage is important, as those of us who are
hoarders do not like to throw anything away. It
has been 10 years since Richard Nelson’s
presentation to this body on bookbinding; since
then there has been a bit of progress. [1]
* Must deal with difficult personalities when
not binding it yourself
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* Book is not flat (wedgie or spine bump) for
insertion into book case
* Spine cannot show identifying information
* Pages likely to tear out with heavy use
* Difficult or impossible to add or re-arrange
pages
* Need expensive machinery and skilled
operator
* Not available on demand; must wait for
delivery
* Expensive due to high labor cost
* Insecure: pages can fall out or the entire book
can fall apart
So, if you have a pile of handwritten or printed
sheets, how can you transform them into a book
and avoid some of these problems? Consider
the possibilities.
Three Ring “D” Binder: The common threering binder is where most of us start. It is a good
way to store papers of standard size. Ring
binders are best when sheets must be frequently
added or removed. With heavy use, the holes in
the sheets tear out, but these are easily repaired
with adhesive reinforcements or by scotch tape
on the edge and re-punching. The “D” ring
variant allows the space between covers to be
completely filled and provides better storage
density. The spine can take a label and it is easy
to insert a three-ring binder into a book case.
The punch you need is cheap and readily
available in any office supply store. Of course,
you don’t need a punch for pre-punched
Swedish engineer’s paper (figure 1). Good luck
finding a Swedish engineer’s binder! Locally,
(Redondo Beach, California) salvaged binders
are available at the TRW swap meet on the last
Saturday of every month at 8:00 AM. For
directions ask at W6TRW 145.320 -600 PL
114.8.
Figure 1 Swedish Engineer's Pad – note hole
positions
Disadvantages of the ring binder are the high
cost of the preferred “D” ring binders in office
supply stores, and the wedge you create in your
box or book case when the spine of the binder is
thicker than the document (figure 2). A good
way to neutralize the wedge is with an empty
binder.
Spiral Binding: Kinko’s can be a good place to
have books spiral bound. The results are pretty
good. Spiral bound books have only a slight
bulge at the spine that does not interfere with
insertion into a bookshelf. The books open flat
for photocopying. A special punch is needed to
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prepare the sheets for insertion, and a skilled
operator is needed to do the job. If you are
Figure 2 The Wedge Problem
lucky, there is a slight possibility of prompt
service from a courteous employee. The results
are good if the book does not receive heavy use.
Spiral bindings open flat for photocopying, and
have only a slight bulge at the spine that does
not interfere with insertion into a bookshelf.
Pages can be added with some difficulty by a
skilled binder, but may be vertically offset by up
to half the distance between holes. A long time
ago, HP calculator manuals were spiral bound.
However, spiral binding requires a special punch
that you are not likely to have at home, and a
supply of spiral wire bindings of various
diameters. This forces you to deal with workers
who may give you prompt service and excellent
results… or something else. The spine of a
spiral binding is unsuitable for carrying any
is more rapid than with a spiral binding because
the holes are larger and have square corners that
the comb rubs with sharp internal edges.
Sometimes, with very thick books, the comb is
not stiff enough; it comes open and the entire
book can come apart with pages scattered
everywhere.
Figure 3 Spiral Binding with Covered Spine
kind of label or identifying information. (See an
interesting exception in figure 3) Pages are
easily removed—too easily if the book is heavily
used. Once a page tears out on the perforation
line, you need access to a punch to prepare a
repaired or a replacement page. The wire coil is
removed, the replacement sheet inserted, and a
new coil is installed. For a heavily used volume,
avoid the vertical displacement problem by
binding some extra blank sheets into the book;
these can be trimmed and torn-out pages can be
glued to them, or you can remove the coil and
place the blank sheets in your printer to make
replacement pages. Do not expect to find the
required skill and patience to do a good job from
a unionized hourly employee of a large
corporation. But sometimes you get lucky.
Comb Binding: Comb binding has most of the
advantages of spiral binding. With the help of a
special comb spreader that is part of the
punching machine, insertion of the comb into
the punched pages is much faster than spiral
binding. The teeth of the comb are
perpendicular to the spine of the book, so all of
the pages are punched the same; that makes it
possible, with some skill, to insert pages without
the vertical offset you get from the slanted holes
in a spiral binding. The spine can take a
gummed label for quick identification in the
book case.
There are two problems with comb binding. The
pages tear out with heavy use. This degradation
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Velo Binding: Velo binding clamps the pages
tightly between two plastic strips that are
gripped by eleven plastic ties. The ties are
melted into place so that they cannot come
loose. As with comb binding, it is not too
difficult to cut the plastic ties, disassemble the
book, and insert additional pages. Unlike comb
binding, the ties are round and have no sharp
edges to wear at the round holes, and the tight
clamping prevents all motion that might lead to
hole wear. There is a variant of Velo binding
that can provide a hard cover with an embossed
spine; however, you can use #240 sandpaper to
flatten the spine for writing without the added
cost and storage volume of a hard cover. Velo
bound books do not come apart, not even after
heavy use. On the other hand, you will probably
not want to use a document with this kind of
binding.
Note that there is an inferior version of Velo
binding that has only four holes. This is not
recommended. A minor nuisance with Velo is
that the plastic binders protrude on both sides of
the spine and interfere with insertion of the book
into a tightly packed book case. Velo binding
machines are not cheap.
Nelson’s Staples and Duct Tape: Richard
Nelson believes that he has perfected a binding
system that requires minimum effort and, of
course, minimum cost [1]. Nelson uses heavy
staples to bind the sheets together, and he covers
the spine of the document with duct tape. The
duct tape is required when the staples are not
long enough to reach all the way through the
volume; in this case, the volume is stapled
through both the front and rear. Such a binding
easily goes in and out of a book case, and packs
well into a banker’s box for maximum density.
It would not be too difficult to add a hard cover
or to sand the spine flat for marking and
omitting the duct tape.
Figure 4 Staple and Duct Tape Binding
Problems with the Nelson bind are that it does
not open flat (figure 4), and it is difficult to
insert or replace a page. The maximum
thickness you can bind depends on the length of
Figure 5 Deadly Assault Weapon
the staples and the power of the staple gun. The
staple gun you really want (figure 5) can be used
as a lethal weapon and is likely to be declared by
the California Attorney General to be a “deadly
assault rifle”. As with Velo binding, this is good
for material you want to archive and forget, not
for material you will access frequently.
Professional Bookbinding: For the best
looking book, go to a professional bookbinder.
Professionally bound books fit perfectly into
your bookshelf, and have a spine that can
display identifying information when the book is
shelved. ng.
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Figure 6 "Professionally Bound Book"
I had the most problems with this approach and
do not recommend it. Professional bookbinding
requires a skilled craftsman equipped with
machinery and materials not available to the
layman. He may be difficult to deal with, have
personality issues, or he may just be having a
bad day and bad breath. You may need a
foreign language to communicate with him
(Brazilian Portuguese). There can be a waiting
time of several weeks because he is re-binding
ten thousand books for the school district, he is
really annoyed by your one or two volumes, and
he is offended by your presence in his workshop.
The book he makes may look good, but good
looks are not everything: inside the book there
can be pages that are inverted or out of order.
And a thick conventional book does not open
flat on a copier window (figure 6). Inserting or
re-arranging pages requires rework by the same
skilled craftsman. The economic and other cost
for all this is the highest of all the approaches
considered here. You can approach this level of
quality yourself with a bit of effort and
experience. The pro bookbinder is not
recommended (unless you are binding 10,000
volumes).
Introducing HPPBBS: This new (for us)
Handheld Personal Portable Book Binding
System has all of the features we cherish in our
technical tools. It is highly portable,
independent of the electrical utility system,
inexpensive, and virtually indestructible. There
are several levels to which you can take this
form of binding, depending on the time and
effort you want to put into it. The levels are
starter, home basic, home premium,
professional, enterprise, and ultimate. A brief
description of each follows.
Starter Binding: The complete system is shown
in figure 7. As you can see, it is completely
portable, and it is truly personal: you always
have it with you. In fact, you probably have
this equipment with you right now, unless you
have undergone unpleasant surgery or Homeland
Security interrogation. This tool alone works
well for small documents.
Just line up the sheets, use your personal tool to
smear the glue onto the spine, and set the
document aside with the wet glue hanging over
the edge of the table, and wait at least fifteen
minutes before moving anything. The glue is
Figure 8 Best Glue for Binding
An amazing amount of flexing before it fails,
and when that happens it is easy to repair.
Tacky Glue is used as a temporary holder in
sewing projects and is found in most stores that
sell fabrics. It is cheap and it cleans up with
water. If it accidentally dries on a hard surface,
it is easily scraped off. Bookbinding web sites
recommend polyvinyl acetate (PVA), but Tacky
works so well that I find no need to try anything
else. I have reason to suspect that Aleene’s
actually is PVA [2].
Figure 7 Handheld Personal Portable
Binding System
fully cured in 2 hours. The enabler for all of
this is Aleene’s Tacky Glue (figure 8). It looks
like white glue, and is water soluble, but it does
not taste the same and it dries flexible. It takes
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Home Basic Binding: This variant is used for
more than ten pages. Some rudimentary
equipment, shown in figure 9, is used to clamp
thicker documents together. When the
documents are lined up and clamped, lay them
on a flat surface with the spine hanging over the
edge of a thin book so that the workbench
supports the Wight of the clamps. Apply glue
between the clamps. After twenty minutes,
If you are finicky, you may object to the
concave spine (figure 10) that results from
shrinkage of the glue. With practice, you can
learn to set up the book in the clamp with the
opposite curve so that when the glue shrinks it
will pull the spine flat.
Professional: In the professional version, the
card stock covers are fortified against dog-ear
with diagonal strips at the corner. (Figure 11)
The spine is fortified with cotton cloth that has
been impregnated with glue. Old tee shirts and
pant legs work well for this. Future experiments
with dog-ear will use Starbucks coffee stir
sticks.
Figure 9 Rudimentary Book Clamps
remove the clamps and apply a thick coat of glue
to the entire spine. Lay flat and let dry 1 hour.
This is good for documents up to about 6mm
thick.
Home Premium: This version is for thicker
books. Break the books into sections about 6
mm thick. Clamp each section and apply glue
between the clamps. Also, prepare a front and
back card stock cover. When all of the sections
have been spot glued, use a larger clamp, such as
the one in Figure 8 to hold the entire book
together. Apply a generous coating of glue to
the spine and wait two hours.
Figure 10 Thicker Book Built from
Separately Bound Sections
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Figure 11 Corner Fortification (inside face
of cover)
Ultimate: For the ultimate version, the edges of
the book are sanded and a hard cover is
fabricated and attached. Examine books to see
how to attach the cover to the book; it requires
two sheets of heavy paper double the size of
your printed pages. Some examples of mine are
shown in figure 11. Note the extended spine
that forms a pocket for a pencil. The only
difficulty in making the hard cover is folding
fabric around the corners of the cardboard core.
Figure 13 Optional Bookbinding Clamp
Figure 12 Hard Covers. Notice the enlarged spine that
forms a pocket for the pencil.
Use the least glue possible to wet the cardboard
core of a hard cover; otherwise, glue will bleed
through the fabric and you cover will look
terrible. It may be helpful to thin the glue with
water for this. Do not use heavy cardboard for
the spine; cardstock is sufficient. The spine
must be flexible and slightly curved for
complete opening of the center of the book.
Another approach is to use a hard cover that you
have removed from a dead book. Be sure that it
is the right thickness. You may need to change
the page dimensions in your computer before
you print the book so that the printed pages fit
the cover. You are unlikely to find an old book
with standard size pages. After trimming the
pages in a paper cutter, line them up and clamp
them in a book clamp like the one shown in
figure 13. With the spine nearly flush with the
face of the book clamp, sand it flat with #60
sandpaper, then glue it. After the glue is cured
(about 2 hours), loosen the clamp and rotate the
volume to expose the top and bottom edges.
Sand the top and bottom edges flat with #60, and
then with #240 until they look good. Finally
rotate the volume so that the outer edge is
exposed. Wrap #60 sandpaper around a
cylindrical object, such as a religious memorial
candle, and sand the outer edge concave. Finish
with #240 sandpaper. Then attach the hard
cover. You will find that you can thumb such a
book as well as one that is professionally bound.
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Maintenance: It is easy to maintain an
HPPBBS bound book. If pages come loose
after heavy use, just put a dab of glue on your
finger and add where needed. To insert a page,
cut or tear the binding apart, insert the pages,
and re-glue. I maintain a daily journal that is 32
pages paperback. When that is filled, I glue it
onto the stack. At the end of the year, it gets a
hard cover.
Thanks to Richard Nelson for arousing my
interest in this project. His philosophy is to
throw away nothing, keep everything, organize
it, store it with neutron-star density, and do so at
zero cost. You are urged to experiment with all
of the ideas given here and report your results to
the author.
Notes
[1]
Nelson, Richard, Low Cost
Bookbinding, HHC 2004 Proceedings.
[2]
I found one reference that indicates
Aleene’s Tacky Glue actually is PVA. PVA
looks like Tacky glue. View real PVA at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFbgW0r7uXw