As I’ve mentioned in the past I have a fair amount of RPG pdfs and almost always play digitally. I seriously feel limited by my bad handwriting. That said, I do like the feel of a physical object. I love a good journal and a nice pen. Further I’ve found playing digitally with a physical book makes it easier in terms of flipping through pages and dancing between Windows. So earlier this year I set out to start bookbinding. It was something that had been on my radar for a while so I was eager to give it a go.

I started as I do with any new endeavor and watched a bunch of YouTube videos. There were three channels which I found I was spending most of my time on: @DASBookbinding; @bittermelonbindery; @SeaLemonDIY. There were numerous others that I went to and tons of great content out there regarding bookbinding no matter where you start. I just found that I was going back to these three the most.

Saddle Stitch

Once I had a sense of how to bind books I decided to give it a go with something simple and that I already had the materials for. I printed off a few small pamphlets and short game books. The hardest part was doing the imposition. I have a MacBook in addition to my Windows PC and I found a handy little script–for the Mac–someone had made which did the imposition automatically for me. Once I had the pages imposed, then I needed to print them correctly, double-sided and printed along the short edge. All of these were fairly easy. Next I grabbed a needle and thread and went to town. I folded the paper, used a push pin to make the holes, and then sewed it up using the saddle stitch. I did five or six and everyone came out great.

The largest one that I did this way was Be Like a Crow which came in at 84 pages. Even at that size it worked out very well. I’ve set these books up to have four pages per normal sheet of printing paper, so even though it contains the entire 84 pages of the book, it was a lot less actual pieces of paper.

Coptic Stitch

Feeling good about saddle stitching I decided to try something a little bit more complex and I opted for the coptic stitch. I started this time by heading down to the local arts and crafts store and getting the base materials needed for binding with the coptic stitch. In this case, I got some bookbinding needles,  bookboard, and some waxed thread. I just used old wrapping paper for the covers, as being a newbie I didn’t want to put a ton of money into yet another hobby. That said, I was happy with the way my two coptic stitched books came out. I used the Tome of Adventure. I followed the same basic steps above. I broke the PDF into 16 page signatures that I then imposed. Once that was done I folded the signatures. Poked starting holes in their crease and started sewing. I did make the covers before I started, as they are sewn with the pages. I just used a glue stick to glue on the paper.

Overall, these came out pretty good as well. My only issue is that this particular book has a ton of tables and because I did the 4 pages per sheet, the pages were super small and therefore some of the font is small. Not impossible to read but not super easy for my old eyes.

Japanese Stitch

As you can see there is a steady progression to what I felt were more and more complex stitches. Next I tried a Japanese Stitch. Again using old paper and a glue stick to make the cover, with the book board I had purchased. I made a little bird book for my nephew. This one was a bit more stylistic and a little less of what I might do for an RPG book. But who knows.

Case Binding

Finally, I tried my hand at case binding. This is basically what we think of when we think of traditional hardbound books. I made a journal with custom made Cornell-style notes for playing solo RPGs, I ended up using it as my summer to-do list journal. I’ve also started to bound a little bird journal and a couple books I’ve gotten off of the Gutenberg Library, once I have things done I’ll start to pull some of my most used PDFs and start to bind them this way. With YouTube instructions this wasn’t all that hard at all. I did get some book cloth for it instead of the old wrapping paper.

I’m super happy how this one turned out and have started a couple more, which have been halted by the end of school. But now that it is summer I’m looking forward to haring on them again.

Conclusion

At this point I’ve created a little work station in my basement for book binding. I purchased real glue, more book board, a better knife for cutting, an awl, a number of different squares and rulers, and more and more actual materials. It isn’t hard to bind your own books and like most things there are a number of different entry points. If you are someone like me who has a PDF you want bound fairly cheaply, you do a lot worse than trying to bound it yourself.

Have you tried your hand at book binding?