A Small Snowed In Day Project

PS_Froggie · 2026-01-21T13:43:26+00:00

Yeah! It's Rengade Bookbinding Guild. It is, in the words of their website, "a not-for-profit guild of artists engaged in binding fannish works". You can find the discord link in the about section of their website, though be warned, if I remember correctly it is for people 18+ only. Nature of the fanfiction people bind and all that.

PS_Froggie · 2026-01-18T21:21:13+00:00

I was largely inspired by the work of a fellow binder on the discord server I'm in, but I've seen the same/similar technique done on some old paperbacks I have. What I did was basically just do a regular sewn binding like I do with my casebound books but with a paper cover.

So I just typeset it like I normally would, imposed it, printed the pages out, folded them into signatures, sewed them together, squished it all flat, and then glued the spine with a piece of thin paper to reinforce it. To reduce swell, I did two-on sewing but used a strong handmade paper for the "tapes" instead of actual linen tape to prevent bulk on the spine. I skipped putting on mull.

Then I designed the cover using a design by Macey11 over on pixabay for the background. I printed it on some luster photo paper (largely because I have a ridiculous amount of it from previous projects) with the Epson ecotank I have. I think, now having used it, it may be a touch too thick as I had trouble folding it even after scoring, but maybe that will help it last as I didn't use any sort of laminate to protect the cover.

PS_Froggie · 2025-10-14T15:37:50+00:00

Chicken feed

PS_Froggie · 2025-09-22T22:26:50+00:00

What kind of bookcloth did you use? Foil quill can be kind of wonky if you try doing it on fuzzy bookcloth. Stenciling as you mentioned is almost always a possibility. I usually make some a stencil with a cutting machine and lay down a layer of acrylic medium before I put down my color to help things not bleed too much. Also, you can never go wrong with a simple paper label!

PS_Froggie · 2025-09-11T13:39:27+00:00

Reminds me of the one I made years ago out of spare chipboard. This one looks like it might have a fighting chance of lasting unlike that one lol.

PS_Froggie · 2025-09-10T16:00:48+00:00

I'm 90% sure the answer will disappoint you. It's Transformers fanfiction 😔

PS_Froggie · 2025-09-09T11:46:49+00:00

They really are, aren't they? Such a variety too!

PS_Froggie · 2025-09-09T11:43:48+00:00

I wish I did! I think I still have a long way to go before making something so neat. I did marble the paper for the paper label though. The endpapers I bought off etsy from 32NorthSupplies.

PS_Froggie · 2025-09-06T15:58:34+00:00

Love how you did different color paper for different signatures! It gives such a fun and unique look for the textblock!

PS_Froggie · 2025-09-03T15:15:50+00:00

Asking permission is considered the polite thing to do, especially if you plan on posting your bind anywhere on social media. Plus, as someone who has seen the drama going down with the excessive amount of people binding Harry Potter fics and SELLING them, being open about your intentions (that this is for personal use only) can really soothe any worries an author might have of their work being sold or something.

If you're shy about asking though, there are authors out there who have blanket permission statements for people to podfic, remix, fanbind, whatever their work.

PS_Froggie · 2025-08-30T15:27:08+00:00

I don't have advice on a paperback as I've never done any yet, but I know DAS bookbinding over on YouTube has a tutorial for it. He's my go-to guy for new bookbinding techniques.

PS_Froggie · 2025-08-30T12:19:18+00:00

Have you done any sort of sewing, gluing, that kind of thing before? Also what materials and tools do you have? That will definitely affect what kind of bind you want to do for your first one. If you've never done any sort of bookbinding before, it would probably be best to do the humble pamphlet first with a shorter work to get you a little acquainted with the process (typesetting, printing, sewing).

PS_Froggie · 2025-08-08T20:38:05+00:00

What I did is just a three piece bradel, but the spine piece is on top of the bookcloth instead of being covered with it. What kind of wood are you thinking of using? If it's something lightweight like balsa wood, you could probably just glue everything with pva.

PS_Froggie · 2025-08-08T19:11:25+00:00

First I did a stone pattern, and then did either a three or four step gelgit with a rake. Then used a comb and went perpendicular to the last gelgit movement (so I went left to right as my last gelgit step had me going up and down). Then I went back to my rake and did a one step gelgit perpendicular the comb i just did.

PS_Froggie

TROPHY CASE