Bookbinding challenges - Building a piercing cradle

Bookbinding is a holy endeavour.

Relax! This has absolutely nothing to do with religion at all. Not even in any remote, metaphorical way.

I say it's "holy" because once you figure out the deeply strange domain of signatures (yes there will be episodes here devoted to the magic of signatures), the next thing you must do, if you plan to make your way to a beautiful leather-bound book with gilded pages, is to punch holes in the fold of the signatures.

The thing is, of course, that the holes can't be just anywhere, ideally, they must be right in the middle of the fold crease. In addition, the position of the holes should be identical in each signature.

As I experimented with signatures, I applied what I learned from Chanel of Bitter Melon Bindery. If you tend to be nervous or anxious, even if you have no interest whatsoever in bookbinding, check out Chanel's channel (odd, I just saw that - Chanel channel). Chanel is an expert bookbinder, and also a wonderfully calming person.

I learned everything I thought I needed to know from Chanel about hole punching. Following Chanel's lesson, I made a piercing guide, and bought an awl.

I figured I was set. So I punched holes in all my test signatures as they were printed, folded, and proofread.

Then a couple of weeks ago I looked closely at my draft signatures, and saw that my holes weren't as aligned as they ought to be.

Fortunately, Dennis of Four Keys Book Arts, another very gifted bookbinder, taught me I would be well served if I had a piercing cradle. Click here to watch the lesson I learned.

Following his guidance in his YouTube video, and only using the materials I had available, I was able to craft my own piercing cradle. Since the materials I had couldn't exactly match Dennis' measurements, first I made a test model from a sheet of paper.

Since that worked, I proceeded to make an actual piercing cradle from the book board I had and some scrap leather.

My piercing cradle will absolutely essential once I print the final version of the twenty-three signatures that make up the book I am making in their proper format, on really nice paper, in colour.

There will be no room for errors.

Using the piercing cradle, the holes I punched are now quite nicely aligned.