What you are seeing here from left to right are...
a) a book cover theory laid out on paper;
b) the first complete test of 10 or eleven test signatures, folded, sewn, glued, and trimmed, with a first complete test leather cover, and with the book block cased into the cover; and
c) the complete test book block of 23 signatures with all the book's pages in the correct order, each signature folded, all signatures sewn, and a first coat of glue applied to the binding.
It's far from perfect, and it's even far from good.
What you can't really see is how much I have learned up to this point.
Test
Test
Test
There are things I already knew before the first test, like how important precise measurements are, the importance of having the right materials, and the key role that skills play in achieving something that meets the objective of producing a really nice and valued leather-bound book.
Here is what I have learned so far, thanks to the first complete test, in no particular order:
- The idea of having the book title printed on book cloth in a window on the front cover works nicely. The problem that you can see is that the front cover window is a sandwich of two cover boards and a sheet of book cloth. It's way too thick. Like twice too thick. I think I can reduce it to a single thickness, but that is going to require a separate test.
- I suspected the test leather was too thick. It's just random leather from scraps I got at the local crafts shop. The leather I need to find is a nice red leather to match the ultimate design. I'll see if that will be available in a thinner lighter weight. If not, I think this thickness of leather will actually work. We'll see in the second test when the complete book is bound.
- The end papers I used are just plain sheets of paper. I am kind of shocked at how well they did their job. What I learned is the role they play can't really be understood until you actually use them to secure the cover. It's the most important role that paper ends up playing in a properly bound leather covered book. To play that role properly, the paper needs to be thicker and stronger than the paper used to print the book. Ideally what may be best is a Japanese paper with a heart motif, in red. We'll see if that even exists.
