[HN Gopher] Duct Tape Book Binding - Cheepo Delux
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Duct Tape Book Binding - Cheepo Delux
Author : Tomte
Score : 183 points
Date : 2022-07-25 09:23 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.instructables.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.instructables.com)
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| This is brilliant. I've been planning to print and bind some old
| journals from the Internet Archive and other places (eg Analog
| Dialogue), and I've been putting it off because I couldn't bring
| myself to set up for more involved binding methods.
|
| But as other comments say, I may go with the purpose-made
| spinetape and maybe a cardboard cover (but then I'll start
| procrastinating over cover design!)
| esarbe wrote:
| Is there anything like instructables but for electronics? I did
| electrical engineering basics years ago but never really did
| anything with it. I'm looking for something to play around with
| leds and little motors and maybe some PV cells.
|
| Any hints?
| londons_explore wrote:
| There are plenty of electronics projects on instructables. Or
| tiktok
| meatmanek wrote:
| hackaday.io has people showing off their projects in a
| different but similar way (though usually people on hackaday
| don't write step-by-step instructions.)
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Denim - from old trouser legs - is another good and long-lasting
| material for binding books. Back in the days of tractor-fed 9-pin
| dot matrix printers I made a number of books this way using a
| home-made book press, a bottle of PVA wood glue and strips of
| denim. These books still survive after some 35 years, the
| denim/PVA glue combination keeps up well without cracking or
| tearing.
| codazoda wrote:
| For booklets, see 360 degree staplers.
|
| You're welcome.
| bewaretheirs wrote:
| Or saddle staplers.
| samatman wrote:
| I have a real soft spot for this kind of instructable, and I've
| done enough bookbinding to say that this one will work.
|
| That said, let me present my decision tree for using duct tape:
| if not closet.gaffer_tape then if task.urgent then
| online.order(gaffer_tape) return closet.duct_tape or
| bail("ing wire") else return
| obtain(gaffer_tape) end else return
| closet.gaffer_tape end
| masukomi wrote:
| For those who might not have caught the subtle distinction on
| line 4
|
| While the terms are frequently used interchangeably "gaffer
| tape" and "duct tape" are very different tapes with very
| different glues, and very different stretch properties, for
| very different use cases.
|
| That being said, I'm curious as to how bailing wire would be
| used in this scenario.
| Mezzie wrote:
| There are two main ways of book binding. One uses
| glue/adhesive, the other uses string/wire/tying. I'd assume
| the bailing wire would be used for the second type in a pinch
| if for some reason duct tape wasn't usable.
| samatman wrote:
| A universal solvent doesn't exist, but there are three
| universal solutions: duct tape, baling [not sic] wire, and
| WD-40.
|
| None are very good at their job, as it happens.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I prefer gaffer tape, zip ties, and 3-in-one.
| cduzz wrote:
| Having gotten cut many times on razor sharp edges of
| trimmed zip ties, I beg you to consider Velcro instead.
|
| Or those wires used to suspend ceiling tiles, if you need
| something that's going to last more than a couple years
| sbf501 wrote:
| 3-in-1 is nice. So many people don't realize WD-40 isn't
| a lubricant. I worked at a bike store and had to explain
| to hundreds of DIY'ers every year after they completely
| ruined their bike's chains and washed out the cassette's
| internal lube.
| xbar wrote:
| I ruined several bike chains as a kid with WD40. I didn't
| understand why they seemed to fail so rapidly despite my
| vigilance.
|
| 3-in-1 is good.
| happyopossum wrote:
| The "WD40 is not a lubricant" trope isn't true - it is a
| lubricant. That said, it isn't grease, and can
| displace/remove grease in situations where you might not
| want that.
|
| [0] https://www.wd40.com/myths-legends-fun-facts/
| sbf501 wrote:
| I should have just said "WD40 is bad for your chain."
|
| This was back in the 80's, so we didn't have the
| internets then. Funny how many myths I promoted, albeit
| harmlessly.
| aetherspawn wrote:
| I have always borrowed the sewing machine to bind small books
| quickly. It takes about 1 minute, less messy then glue perhaps,
| and doesn't need to dry.
|
| You can tape over the stitch if you don't like the look of it,
| but I personally like the texture.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Paper destroys sewing machine needles. They get blunt and then
| you'll have jams and knots everywhere before long. Make sure
| you have a spare for actual sewing before doing this...
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| You should use a tripoint needle typically sold for leather
| stitching to cut through paper. Regular needles are designed
| to push through a material that can be locally deformed with
| minimal resistance. It stresses consumer grade machines to
| shove a fabric needle through a non-fabric material.
| bschne wrote:
| Oh man this brings backs memories! When I grew up, we had this
| one book with all kinds of DIY home improvement and house-
| building instructions I _loved_ to leaf through. It got so much
| use (and I think had already been passed to my family used!) that
| it completely fell apart multiple times. We sort of re-bound it
| with a similar method involving glue and some kind of reinforced
| transparent adhesive film more than once!
| xbar wrote:
| I had a similar feeling: my original Deities and Demigods book
| endured a lovely duct tape re-binding.
| fatbird wrote:
| As someone who just completed my third and fourth courses in fine
| leather binding, I can say with authority that this is a very
| quick and sensible method of making a durable binding for this
| level of value. As Falcolas noted, this is partway to doing a
| double fan method, which specifically allows for the glue
| penetration the author is looking for.
|
| What the author could also do is get some board (like, say, the
| cardboard on the back of legal pads), clamp all that together
| prior to gluing, extend the spine an inch off a countertop with
| heavy books on the rest of the book block to hold it still, and
| then use a hacksaw to saw into the spine at intervals, about
| 1/32nd of an inch deep, crosswise to the spine. Take a piece of
| thread, dental floss, or fine string, and after gluing, press it
| into the first channel, loop back into the second, then the
| third, etc. Wipe excess glue and then put the duct tape over the
| spine, pressing it down evenly--THEN you fold the tape over the
| front and back at the same time, taping down the thread loops to
| the front and back of the board. Now you have a semi-hardcover,
| depending on the thickness of the boards.
|
| Note that the duct tape adds little to the structure. You could
| also use a piece of cotton or linen in its place, you just have
| to glue it down to the front and back. This would be stronger,
| longer term, because PVA will hold better than duct tape adhesive
| over the years. If you do, cut the cloth "on the bias" meaning at
| 45 degrees to the weave. This prevents fraying and increases
| overall strength, for the forces it will encounter. If you do
| this, you can add another layer of PVA to the spine on top of the
| cloth, which increases strength.
|
| My wife is a teacher and we created something like this as an
| exercise for all of her art students to make their own journals,
| with the final step being covering it with kraft paper. They
| loved it, used it for their art journals all semester, and asked
| to do it again at the end so they could have another.
|
| If you get the basic assembly and gluing right, you'll be very
| surprised at the durability of something like this, including a
| lot of punishment like opening the book flat and using your hand
| to "break" the spine. It'll hold together.
| mongol wrote:
| Does this hacksaw trick have a name? Would like to Google it to
| see if I can find it illustrated
| fatbird wrote:
| It's called "sawn-in cords", as in using a saw to make a
| channel to hold the cords. It was a very common technique in
| the 18th and 19th centuries in fine binding that allowed for
| faster sewing of the text block; the cords would be thicker
| hemp or linen cords, to which the boards of the book would be
| attached.
|
| In "perfect binding", which is the name for the overall class
| of binding the linked article is describing, where individual
| sheets are glued together along one edge, it's still called
| sawn-in cords for lack of a better name. It's not a typical
| addition in perfect binding, but it's exactly the same
| technique with the same purpose: adding cords to increase
| strength.
|
| Here's a video of a well-known binder, Sage Reynolds, doing
| it as I described it for a perfect bound book:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMXHmXSYXso
| mongol wrote:
| Thanks a lot. It seems quite easy to do with simple tools
| so I will definitely try it. It is only that press thing
| that I would need to improvise somehow.
| fatbird wrote:
| The simplest solution is some quarter inch plywood (art
| stores have these as panels in various sizes like 9x12"
| or 6x8") and some clamps. For overall pressure, add some
| heavy books on top. For sawing, if the overall assembly
| of pages and boards and clamps is stable, there's a bunch
| of ways for you to hold it steady, including just in your
| lap: the sawing is on a very small scale. You could also
| clamp the whole assembly in a bench vise.
|
| I have one of those presses and it's definitely useful
| for a variety of binding tasks, but honestly, I've never
| used it the way it is in the video. I have a laying press
| [0] that I use for such things, and once you see the
| logic of that, it's pretty straightforward to reproduce
| the effect with boards and clamps.
|
| [0] https://hollanders.com/collections/presses-other-
| equipment/p...
| falcolas wrote:
| When applying the glue, fan the spine end out by bending the
| pages out to one side, glue, then the other side, more glue, then
| clamp. That gives the glue more surface area to adhere to, making
| for a longer lasting binding.
|
| The technique is called the double fan method, and would work
| fine with the rest of the techniques here.
| yohannparis wrote:
| I think that's why they referred to in: > Step 3: Its All in
| the Flippidy Flap Flap
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Yeah... they said that, and then provided basically no
| details on what was actually meant in "the most important
| step".
| lincolnq wrote:
| It took me a while to notice, but there is more text if you
| click on the images then mouse over the highlight boxes.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Hey, sure enough! I had completely missed it.
| ycombinete wrote:
| Yeah I came to the comments hoping someone could explain
| that. He was so busy trying to sound cute that he ended up
| unintelligible.
| fatbird wrote:
| Proper double fan gluing means shuffling the papers
| together to get a nice edge, standing them on edge so the
| spine is upward and somehow clamping or bracing it
| (ideally, it's between two boards in a laying press, but
| there's a lot of ways to make it work) and then pushing the
| spine to one side, fanning out the spine edges so a bit of
| the side is exposing. Spread glue, then push the spine to
| the other side the same amount, exposing the other slight
| side of the page and reapply glue. Then straighten the
| spine.
|
| This will leave between the pages for, ideally, less than
| 1/32nd of an inch or a quarter millimeter, which will
| vastly improve the strength of the glue's attachment to the
| pages without significantly impairing one's ability to open
| the pages mostly flat.
| falcolas wrote:
| Also, many youtube videos on the topic cover how to do
| it, and offer some various setups you can use if you
| don't have proper bookbinding tools.
| throwanem wrote:
| The author isn't wrong about tight clamping potentially limiting
| glue penetration, but that's what edge preparation is for. In the
| books I've bound thus far, I first scored the binding edge in
| crosshatches with a carving tool, then brushed on a first layer
| of glue and pressed a strip of cotton roll gauze into it, and
| finally gave that a second layer of glue.
|
| It worked pretty well; I rarely have trouble with pages coming
| loose or bindings cracking in the books I've made. I have a few
| ideas for how to further improve the result, but those will have
| to wait for when I find time to pick up the hobby again; lately
| the most I've done is quick stitched bindings for small booklets
| when I want to include some essay or article as a supplement in
| my diary.
|
| For spines I prefer black bookbinder's tape. It looks more
| handsome than duct tape, and takes silver paint pen very well for
| titling.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| I have a stapler that will go through about 120 sheets. I'm not
| printing anything longer than that usually.
|
| It's not quite as pretty as duct tape, but it's fine for me.
| cptskippy wrote:
| When I worked at Office Max 24 years ago, they had a printing
| machine from IBM that looked like a photocopier with a PC on
| top. It took cassettes of wire and made it's own staples. I
| don't recall what the page limit was but I feel like it was
| several hundred pages.
| dragontamer wrote:
| 2-punch hole is my favorite cheepo book binding technique.
|
| This duct-tape thing still requires a bit of manual effort.
| 2-hole punch is a bit less popular (3-hole punch is everywhere),
| but 2-hole punch is smaller: both the binding clips and the punch
| itself is just more compact.
|
| 2-hole punch has two choices: the "long-side" 11.5-inch binding
| like a more normal book, or the "top-side" 8-inch. The standard
| clip works in both positions quite well.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Binder Clips is the correct term for the "lever clip thingies"
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| Also called "Bulldog clips" in the UK.
| desindol wrote:
| When I was in my printing apprenticeship we had to sometimes bind
| notebooks from Makulatur. We used the same method but with other
| ingredients there is special book binding tape made out of linen
| ribbon which makes the back more sturdy and is just as cheap as
| good duct tape.
| injidup wrote:
| I would suggest vacuum bagging. I've used it to fix soles to
| shoes and surfboard fins. You can buy the vacuum bag cheap on
| Amazon. I would first loosely fix the block of papers together.
| Add glue and tape to the binding edge then stick it in the bag,
| suck out the air and let atmospheric pressure fix it nicely.
| kragen wrote:
| Is this an alternative to the duct-tape method? Will the glue
| dry inside the bag?
| khobragade wrote:
| An alternative to the clamps! I think the glue will dry
| without issues, though it can make a mess if there's too
| much.
| londons_explore wrote:
| PVA glue won't dry in a vacuum bag.
| ajford wrote:
| PVA glue will indeed dry in a vacuum bag. Most wood glues
| used for veneer pressing or lamination are indeed PVA
| glues and vacuum pressing is one of the best ways to get
| an even clamping pressure on complex or bent laminations.
|
| PVA glue cures by eliminating moisture from the glue, and
| the low pressure of the vacuum will serve to accelerate
| the loss of moisture from the glue.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Gluing wood in a vacuum bag is kinda a special case - the
| moisture doesn't go into the vacuum pump - instead it
| absorbs into the dry wood.
| khobragade wrote:
| I see. I missed the _drying_ part. The moisture has to go
| away from the glue for it to dry. We can help here by
| placing a flat water absorbing material on the tape!
| masukomi wrote:
| gotta say, while a decent instructable, the completely
| unnecessary use of the r word near the beginning really turned me
| off. Almost stopped right there.
| Gigachad wrote:
| dfbsdfbwe2ef2e wrote:
| [deleted]
| krastanov wrote:
| This is probably a bit of a cultural difference. Not every
| English-speaking country considers the word "retarded" an
| ableist insult (as in, for many it has nothing to do
| semantically or etymologically with differently abled people).
| Same as the way Australians use the word "cunt" very
| differently than Americans.
| corrral wrote:
| It's a pretty damn recent shift even in the US. Tons of
| movies from the 00s up to the early part of the 20-teens
| still used it freely and there was no major uproar over it--
| in general, no-one thought anything of it. Practically no-one
| bothered to write "r-word" when discussing it rather than
| just using the term.
|
| It can be jarring to hear in otherwise tame movies, now that
| we're conditioned to shun the word, but I'm pretty sure that
| conditioning is something that only a minority of people in
| the US have been exposed to, even today. Mostly those of us
| who are online too much, probably. Outside that sort of
| bubble I'm not sure how "problematic" it's actually
| considered to be, by the average person.
| cptskippy wrote:
| I struggle with using it and frankly struggle with
| understanding why people are so offended by it. People seem
| to be orders of magnitude more offended by using it than
| calling someone an idiot, moron, mentally challenged,
| developmentally delayed, or saying they have an IDD.
|
| The outrage honestly just comes off as white knighting.
| dwringer wrote:
| I think "idiot" and "moron" have lost their edge because
| they've been so ubiquitous for so long they don't mean
| anything more than, basically, a euphemism for
| "dumbass".* The other terms you mentioned are just as
| offensive as the "r-word" in that context IMHO. Same for
| people who use "autism"/"autist" as a jokey insult. Using
| terms like that as insults in a public forum is in bad
| taste and unnecessarily likely to hurt someone's feelings
| over something over which they have absolutely no
| control.
|
| *I'm aware these terms used to be more in line with the
| others, but frankly I'd also question the wisdom of using
| them in a public forum.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > I think "idiot" and "moron" have lost their edge
| because they've been so ubiquitous for so long they don't
| mean anything more than, basically, a euphemism for
| "dumbass".* The other terms you mentioned are just as
| offensive as the "r-word" in that context IMHO.
|
| A dumbass is someone who is stupid or foolish. Stupid,
| fool, idiot, and moron are all terms that at one point or
| another were used to describe those with an IDD. They're
| all still acceptable insults AFAIK, but now not the
| "r-word". For the longest time it was a fairly tepid
| insult but suddenly has, for reasons unclear to be,
| become outrageous and objectionable on par with the
| "n-word".
|
| > _I 'm aware these terms used to be more in line with
| the others, but frankly I'd also question the wisdom of
| using them in a public forum.
|
| It goes beyond insults though, the term has become
| completely unacceptable as a witticism or in a self
| deprecating manner. It just seems arbitrary to me and
| feels like an arbitrary change to give someone the
| opportunity to seize the moral high ground in a
| disagreement by labeling you ableist.
|
| Idk, I guess I'm just old an can't keep up. The day
| someone labels me an "_ist" for saying "I'm an idiot" is
| the day I'm burning it all down.
| [deleted]
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Another related example is "spaz" which in UK English is
| basically synonymous with "retard" as used in US English.
|
| As wiktionary notes, the offensiveness even within countries
| is variable:
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spaz
|
| But if you're writing for the wider english-speaking/reading
| internet, you probably want to be aware of these things to
| avoid unintentional offence, just as I assume Australians
| modulate their usage of 'cunt' for different audiences
| online.
| mhb wrote:
| "reports"?
| ftkftk wrote:
| Agreed.
| xyclos wrote:
| I was in cub/boy scouts as a kid. One of the first things I did
| when I got my handbooks was cover the existing binding in duct
| tape. I even managed to get beige tape to match the color of the
| boy scout one. Many of the other kids had books with pages
| falling out of the binding. Mine, on the other hand, held strong.
| About 20 years later, I still have the books in decent condition
| with their original duct tape bindings.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| Similarly, I used to cover school books in brown paper and then
| over the top of that with sticky-backed plastic, which turn
| stuck Doreen only on the insides of the cover. Because it
| wasn't actually attached to the outside of the cover like just
| the plastic would be, and it would not tear like only brown
| paper (the actual required method) it formed an incredibly
| tough, slightly cushioned protective layer. Only my books came
| back at the end of the year without dog eared covers and dented
| spine ends.
|
| One teacher had a moan because it wasn't strictly regulation
| but even they had to eventually concede it was a lot better.
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(page generated 2022-07-26 23:01 UTC)