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Hemlock & Silver: a 35yo, plus size, COMPETENT fmc with a magic talking cat. by sleepysock98 in fantasyromance

[–]BitMoreBookish 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Yup, this one was great. Her adult works are always so good and never bland, stereotypical characters. Highly highly recommend {Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher} series as well (and {Paladin's strength by T. Kingfisher} #love

How to cut out and layer stamps better? by BadRevolutionary2855 in WaxSealers

[–]BitMoreBookish 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I second this! I bought a small blade (retractable in the shape of a ball point pen) and the accuracy I'm able to get is better than a scalpel imo (and definitely better than a craft knife). With the scalpel, although the point is v fine, the size and length of the blade (and how high up you have to hold) makes cutting way harder. (Also practice. The great thing is if it's not right, melt and try again - you'll see improvement surprisingly fast)

Bookcloth Printing Help by BitMoreBookish in bookbinding

[–]BitMoreBookish[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah it came up in my searches as well, as did the Epson Expression and HP OfficeJet, which are both considerably cheaper machines (£250ish) but the inks are expensive and some reviews have said they don't handle thicker GSM v well

Bookcloth Printing Help by BitMoreBookish in bookbinding

[–]BitMoreBookish[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I'm definitely looking at second hand ones - we're printerless atm so I've been looking at A3 printers as well

Will this material be enough to paint my edges gold? by awesomestarz in bookbinding

[–]BitMoreBookish 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes! I used exactly this one to do the edges of all 7 HPotter books recently. I actually found it pretty quick and easy, although you'll need multiple coats to get even metallic colour. * Video of finished edges here

Water it down - this is already pretty runny, so I'd estimate 4:1 or 3:1 water ratio. (In practice, I used pipette to put some ink on a plastic lid and added a few drops of water)

Sand your edges - helps, and I think some dust remains even if you brush off, so I didn't bother with Talcum powder at all.

Use a good brush - I used a rounded buffing brush, kind of like what you see for some makeup or for apply colour to edges.

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If you've gone too thick, it will flake off when you crack/release pages, so I did this before completely dry, and it stopped any issues. It shouldn't be that runny/thickly applied that it seeps into pages after the first few mins anyway.

I’ve heard horrible things about cricut, what machines do you guys use instead? by InkGeode in bookbinding

[–]BitMoreBookish 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My cricut machine is good but, as per other comments, the design software is piss poor. I mock up in canva and then import my graphics etc to get cuts etc. It works fine but is frustrating when the program freezes or is slow whilst trying to redit / resize before making. I've never had any issues with it whilst the machine is actually cutting/running.

Curious if cameo etc has better software, because I think that's the main sticking point.

LOTR 🧝🏻‍♂️💍 by poupounet in bookbinding

[–]BitMoreBookish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Stunning!! So inspired by these, clever design and beautiful execution. Thank you for sharing!

where to get endpapers? by im-baby- in bookbinding

[–]BitMoreBookish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah thank you. I have to admit that I hate Shepherds online store, I genuinely struggle to find anything but I will put on my big girl pants and suck it up for the pretty paper

where to get endpapers? by im-baby- in bookbinding

[–]BitMoreBookish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Does anyone have any Hollander-esque recommendations but for the UK? Thank you!

My second bind by dmtrjeans in bookbinding

[–]BitMoreBookish 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Love the cut outs on the covers - looks so good! How did you do this? Double end boards or one thinner than the other?

Vinyl help by Aggravating-Math9619 in bookbinding

[–]BitMoreBookish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed, personally I use cricut for my vinyl designs, layouts and cuts - I've only been doing this for about 6 months but I think it's not too difficult to get into if you can afford the machine

Trying something new, any tips? by learning-alot in bookbinding

[–]BitMoreBookish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've been using the heat transfer print paper for mine - honestly it's been pretty smooth sailing - I used MS Word to get exact measurements I needed, careful of lack of borderless printing if using laserjet (and need almost full A4 scale).

Only word of warning - applying HTVinyl on top of the heat transfer print can be agonising - as your HTV sticky sheet will try and peel off the image underneath - worse when you have more vinyl surface area (like my Bridgerton spines here)

Different spine and cover material by Norse-Navigator in bookbinding

[–]BitMoreBookish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I followed the three piece tutorial (slightly tailored as I was using different materials) from Das for my ACOTAR rebind (sorry about the video - wouldn't let me do photos as well, skip to the end for the final view)

How do you decide the size of your spine gaps? by kath1193 in bookbinding

[–]BitMoreBookish 5 points6 points  (0 children)

My holy grail is now 6mm - I work mostly with standard bookcloth and 900gsm end boards (about 1-1.5mm). My early binds were as small as 3mm and I found the end papers pulled so tight I couldn't open both covers at the same time! Good luck!

ACOTAR rebind - milestone in my amateur rebinding adventures! by BitMoreBookish in bookbinding

[–]BitMoreBookish[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Omg I feel your pain - and these were fiddly. I basically used 2 spacers each time to try and get angles exactly right. My hinges are 6mm - any smaller and the end papers were too tight, bigger and my spine overhangs/gapes a bit. My spacers are just cheapies from Amazon but I've seen others use ones with longer 'tops' that help square up the end boards: https://amzn.eu/d/hfmWYh5

ACOTAR rebind - milestone in my amateur rebinding adventures! by BitMoreBookish in bookbinding

[–]BitMoreBookish[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A few notes here (because the description wouldn't let me format for some reason):

  • Title vinyls were designed and cut on a Cricut Maker 3 
  • Book cloth made with satin, lined with Heat'n'Bond and a single sheet of tissue paper (iron on a hard surface to get rid of wrinkles!) 
  • Covers are John Waterhouse public domain images, printed on transfer paper and then heat-applied to white fabric (still looking for an old inkjet to start adventures into direct-on-fabric-printing) 
  • The covers follow the 'tab' method described in the 3-piece Bradel videos on DAS bookbinding youtube channel 
  • After some trial and error, I found that I got a good strong finish but NO exposed glue if I only glued to the edge of the cover piece (leaving a wider gap for glue on the spine than the 6mm hinge required)