Original DIY gift

Introduction


Two months before the girl’s anniversary, a question arose in my head about a gift, because the best gift is a handmade gift.
I’m my mother’s engineer
In the very first days of my thoughts, I stumbled in the Habr’s news feed on a post dedicated to making a gift version of a book binding, which reminded me that the best gift is a book.

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The first difficulty in the intended way is the choice of the book itself, because it must be unique not only in execution, but also in content. This process dragged on for more than a month, there were doubts: to realize one of the favorite books of the addressee or to introduce something new. All the same, the preponderance fell in the direction of books unfamiliar to her, which required an even more careful choice, and as a result I settled on the adventure novel of the Soviet writer Veniamin Kaverin, whom I met no more than a year before this event - “Two Captains”. At the time of choosing the book, I didn’t think about the number of pages, I just decided for myself that the book would be in A5 format or less, but at the beginning of the layout of the text, having estimated the size of the novel, I did not stop at the beginning of the journey, despite the doubt by the deadline - the process itself began 4.5 days before day x -this is the Russian soul, do everything at the last moment, what else can I say .

Actually the choice of the book itself, in my opinion, is a third of the path traveled in the intended business. There was simply no time left for thought and doubt, the most deadline came, and every minute became expensive.

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Preparation for printing


The format was chosen A5, the appropriate version of the book was selected in electronic form, in the .doc format, and at that moment the idea arose to add images to the book, diluting a little text. Unfortunately, it was not easy to find worthy illustrations for this novel, but they managed to scrape together a couple of color ones; as a result, it was decided to insert black-and-white illustrations reflecting the main points of content before the new chapters of the novel.

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At the same time, the question of congratulation hung in my head: should there be a postcard or how exactly to present it, and in the process of these thoughts I came up with the idea of ​​adding another drop of personality to this book - on the first page put the photo of the birthday girl on one page and on the other place the congratulation itself , which was done.

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When the text was edited, the errors found were corrected, and illustrations and congratulations were inserted, the question arose of how to make up the book for printing. Fortunately in our time there is such an assistant as Google. Having gone by applying the first of the found methods, I was very disappointed, because the process after setting the necessary parameters was delayed, and it was already late in the evening. Going to bed, I was more than sure that in a couple of hours, by morning, everything would be ready, but alas, opening my eyes, I met a message about some kind of error in Elvish and continued to search for layout methods for brochure printing. I stopped at the simplest layout method, with minimal use of certain applications, just one, namely I used Adobe Acrobat XI Pro.

The page parameters of the document in Microsoft Word were changed - the sheet size A5 (148.5x210 mm), and the necessary fields were set and, most importantly, the even and odd sheets in the footer were made with different left or right shifts, so that when printing with notebooks, the page numbering was closer to the edges books.

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After the file was prepared and converted to pdf format, it was necessary to carry out the descent of strips for dividing the future book into notebooks of 16 pages or 4 A4 sheets.

Having opened the file ready for printing in Acrobat, and selecting “Create booklet ...” in the Quite Imposing Plus menu, I set the necessary parameters for printing notebooks of 16 sheets, alternating left and right pages.

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Print


Scrolling through the entire file again, and eliminating the resulting shifts - several tables of contents were at the end of the pages, the time has come to solve the next production problem - printing. Initially, I intended to do this on my inkjet printer. But there was an acute question of trimming the "toothy edges" of the book after stitching, and it was already Thursday, day X was on Sunday. Without hesitation, I went after the couples to the printing house of my native university to agree to use the guillotine to trim the edges. Once again, evaluating the volume of the book and the availability of photographs on the first spread, the idea arose to print in the same printing house. The head of the printing house met me there and very friendly, after hearing - agreed to help me not only in printing and trimming of the edges, but also a couple of tips. Including I was offered to use a folding machine,

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Further, all the printed sheets were folded, sorted into notebooks. Having collected several notebooks in a pile - the first impression of what will be in the end appeared.

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Flashing notebooks


The next step was preparation for flashing, namely marking and making holes in the notebooks for the thread.
Unfortunately, it was late night, and at that moment my head did not realize that it was possible to hold all the notebooks in clamps and make cuts. I made a template with a marking for making holes, stepping back from the edges of a future book of 10 mm from thick cardboard and proceeded to pierce each notebook individually with an awl.

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Attaching each notebook to the template made, I marked with a pencil the points on the fold, while the sheets of notebooks were fixed with ordinary paper clips to avoid shifts.

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After unfolding the notebook, he made awl holes. In the process of 4 notebooks I clamped with paper clips to compress the paper.

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It was already late night, and the appearance of the intermediate result appealed to a feeling of laziness and sleep, but realizing that there was little time left, I continued.

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Before flashing, reinforcing cotton tapes were glued with tape, to the template fixed with clamps, to the table.

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The next 4 hours I spent flashing notebooks. The process is not complicated, but given the volume of the book, it was delayed. The threads were chosen thick, namely the floss, to once again emphasize the uniqueness of this book, because in factory copies of the notebook they are stitched with a thin white or transparent thread.

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fixing the notebooks together during flashing, I took the advice of one of the similar articles.
The binding is sewn starting from the first or last notebook, first we thread the thread from the outside to the inside of the book, along the edges where the thread goes from one notebook to another, we fasten it with knots.


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I also decided, taking into account the thickness of the book, to use several colors of the thread and made a mistake - choosing one of the colors dark - after gluing the whole thread darkened. Next, a photo of the next intermediate result, when the dawn outside the window was close and all the notebooks were stitched and sewn into one book.

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Sizing


I did not reinvent the wheel, using the advice of a person who had gone the way of making gift book bindings.
The resulting design, aligning the notebooks relative to each other, is clamped into a press and gently smeared with glue. I used special glue for cardboard and paper, UHU creative. It dries quickly, glues perfectly, not water-based, so it does not soak the paper and after gluing it remains somewhat elastic. Leave to dry.


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Bookend production


The glue dried very quickly and really remained elastic. Cardboard for the flyleaf was selected in green with a density of 160 g / m ^ 2. To do this, two A4 sheets bent in half were needed. Retreating 5 mm from the fold, marked the end pages to mark the end-sheet.

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Reinforcing tapes are glued later on the flyleaf under the canvas.

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It also came up with the idea of ​​making a bookmark, for which a cotton green braid with an ornament was used, which I sewed on reinforcing tapes and glued for reliability.

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Book block reinforcement


The next step is to complete the assembly of the book block. First, I glued a canvas, mesh cotton fabric on the butt for reinforcing the butt, so that the book would last a long time and certainly would not fall apart during operation.

To begin with, the future “frame” from the canvas sheet (it is sold in large pieces) was marked out and the position of the spine was marked.

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Before sticking the canvas to the book, it's time to hide the not-so-beautiful back. For this, captals (captal tape, etc.) are needed. Find this tape in retail in St. Petersburg - failed, but via the Internet is not so fast. Time was left a little less than a day, in addition, I wanted to make the chapters the same color with the binding of the book. So it was decided to make them yourself.

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Choosing a tape, I thought about how to implement captals. I decided to sew red threads of mouline thread over the ribbon sewn to the canvas.

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Initially, the tape was not cut along the width of the spine, just for convenience, so the next step - I cut and fixed the sewn captals.

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The final action of reinforcing the book - I glued a prepared canvas with sewn captals. I glued it in parts, first to the back foozats, then to the spine and at the end to the front bookend, while I did not spare the glue.

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The moment came to cut the block and I went to the printing house, where I had already agreed in advance to use the guillotine. But it turned out that I was in a hurry to glue the canvas with the captals and therefore I managed to trim only one edge out of three.

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Making Hardcover


Thick cardboard was used to make the binding, unfortunately I can’t designate the exact density, because it was given to me by the very kind uncle from the printing house. The length and width were taken a little more than the format of the book, respectively 150mm and 221mm.

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After measuring the thickness of the spine after gluing under a press, from cardboard less dense than the front and back, I made an insert for binding, namely from a triple folded with a density of 160 g / cm ^ 2.

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Next, the binding blanks had to be glued with cardboard, a burgundy with a density of 300 g / m ^ 2 was chosen. Marking was made on a sheet of Cardboard of the A3 format, taking into account bends during gluing and an inlet for folding. Just during this period of time, everyone loved the favorite stepdir laser milling machine in FabLab, which I hoped for in these short deadlines, trusting it more than my curveshands, therefore, the marking and cutting of the sheet for gluing the binding was carried out exclusively with their own two hands.

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We apply a thin uniform layer of glue to the cardboard, using a brush, first we glue the blanks to the cover strictly according to the marking, remembering that this glue dries very quickly, but is reliable. After gently smearing the overlays for the bend, first right and left, we glue while fixing with clerical staples. After these lumps are glued, we proceed to the upper and lower ones, while in the interval between the cardboard inserts, press the outer cardboard tightly.

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Here's what happened as a result of making the cover.

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Trying on a book, in my opinion it turned out already quite presentable.

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It was already evening before day X, everything seems to be ready, you can glue the book to the cover with fly-leafs, but here it still seemed to me that the case was not completed, and I decided to cover the cover with leather. A frantic search for a master who would take on this late Saturday night ended in the expected disappointment, but then I accidentally went to a school in St. Petersburg where they teach me how to handle skin and I started an interesting dialogue with a woman from the administration of this educational institution who told me good-naturedly I threw off how to do it, I threw off a couple of videos (I didn’t even think of looking for a video on request for binding books with leather) and even suggested where you can buy a small piece of leather with a large selection of both color and skin type. Without thinking twice, I went for skin. Almost immediately, a roll of red suede caught my eye,

Returning to the nice hostel, I immediately smoothed the skin from the back, stretched it out on the table and proceeded to marking.

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The subsequent actions are almost no different from those that were performed when gluing the cover with cardboard, the only difference was that the skin was not easy to hold, given the fact that it was stretched, where it had to be cut a little.

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In the case of leather, sticks on laps already in fly fishing, deciding that it would be better. Try on again, before pasting.

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It seems like everything came out neatly as expected and the process is nearing completion.

Book assembly


It remains, again not sparing the glue, to smear the bookends and the spine, to paste the previously prepared book into the cover. Here is the result.

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It would seem that everything is ready, but for some reason I did not think about the packaging in the process. On day X itself, I went shopping earlier in the morning to pick up gift paper and a bow, but not finding anything suitable, I decided to purchase a gift box. But the book is not of a standard format, therefore, having found a more or less suitable one and with a little effort , there is a mind; one doesn’t have to reach the final.

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Conclusion


In the end, I would like to share my impressions of what was done. It was spent almost completely 4 and a few days, a lot of money was invested in materials, but in my opinion the idea was a success - a do-it-yourself gift to your beloved girl for an anniversary, exactly the one that I would be glad to receive myself (as they taught from childhood to choose gifts) . Not only labor and money are invested in this thing, but also a piece of the soul. I myself liked what happened! friends suggested leaving this book to themselves. This is a unique thing, in my opinion a worthy gift for this event, exactly what I wanted to do. A gift of this kind will not roll, will not break and will not be lost, but will take its rightful place on the shelf, and if it catches your eye it will remind the author and give a lot of positive emotions. I doubt that I could buy something better. Of all the gifts that I gave to anyone, this is perhaps the best.

List of used resources


www.perunica.ru/rukodelie/3010-kniga-svoimi-rukami.html
habrahabr.ru/post/239377

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