An amateur takes on book binding by starting with the most ridiculous project she can think of - combining two books into one 1400-page monstrosity
Tandem Read (Amateur) Book Binding
I’M NO MAAS-OCHIST BUT I AM A CRAFT-OCHIST
With a best friend struggling with a TOD/EOS tandem read. For Christmas, I decided why not try book binding for the first time by taking two (already long by traditional standards) books and combining them into one giant book to aid with the tandem read struggle.
THIS IS NOT A TUTORIAL by any means, so recreate at your own risk. I am very much an amateur and the results are functional but not the height of book binding. Instead, I want to document my process for anyone who is curious about how I did it.
I also didn’t think about documenting the process beyond timelapses for my TikTok, so I have no progress pictures to display, but please enjoy my random timelapses.
My primary source was this Instructable article about hardback book binding. It is primarily about binding blank pages into a book, but steps 5 and onward were very helpful for this project.
MATERIALS:
I didn’t want this gift to break the bank so I made do with materials I already had on hand as a generally crafty person, obviously with the exclusion of the two books to re-bind. Here is a list of all the materials I used for this project:
Paperbacks of Tower of Dawn and Empire of Storms
E-Xacto Knife (I went through 2 or 3 blades as well)
Cardboard for the hardback covers
Printer with copier
Printer Paper
Two pieces of Parchment Paper to make it pretty
Scrap piece of fabric which was lightweight but still pretty strong
Scrap piece of leather to make it pretty
Two scrap pieces of plywood and two clamps to form a makeshift press
A heavy-ass book to weigh down anything drying - I used my Finishing the Hat and Look I Made A Hat box set (yes, I’m a Sondheim nerd, but that should be pretty obvious)
Binder clips to use as mini-clamps to temporarily hold things before I could weigh them down
Hot Glue/Hot Glue Gun
A small iron to reheat the hot glue (mine is already a little messed up from adhesive in another project and therefore was perfect for this use)
Spray Gorilla Glue for temporary glueing of the fabric
Mod Podge
Ruler
Scissors
STEP ONE : COMPILING THE TWO BOOKS
First things first… I bought paperback copies of both Tower of Dawn and Empire of Storms and cut the covers and intro/afterword pages of each book off so I was left with only the main text of each book.
I then went through each book, cut out the chunks of chapter according to this tandem read guide (sent to me by my best friend lol) and put them in order.
For any chapters that didn’t line up easily for cutting (i.e. the last page of the chapter ended on the right page of the book and therefore was on the same page as the first page of the next chapter), I cut the last page off leaving the next chapter in tact and photocopied that page. To keep track of everything more easily, this happened in the middle of the compilation process to ensure I didn’t miss anything or misplace anything. I also did a light pencil mark on each original page of the photocopies to keep track of them for covering later and added a cut-to-size piece of printer paper in front of each of these marked pages if they didn’t already have a copy in front of them.
To prepare everything for binding, I took the (giant) stack of the compiled book and lined everything up as much as possible on the bottom and non-bound side as much as possible, as the bottom is where the book will sit upright on a shelf and aesthetically a uniform unbound side looks better. Obviously this was not perfect, and left a little bit of excess paper on the top, but I couldn’t care less. (I did trim as much as I could but I’m not a professional and I’m working on my perfectionism so I just left it at a certain point.) I then stuck this in my makeshift press with only like half an inch of the spine side of the stack exposed beyond the press.
STEP TWO : GLUEING THE SPINE
Although the actual cutting of the book probably took the longest, this in my opinion was the most painstaking part, probably due to my tiny glue gun.
I took my glue gun and covered the entire spine of the book with a layer of hot glue. I wanted to make sure there it was thick layer in order to thoroughly cover both the paper and the fabric, so it was a very slow process.
I then took my scrap fabric and cut it to the length of the spine and about quadruple the width of spine (this was not an exact measurement, just enough to cover the spine with two wings on either side). I sprayed some Gorilla Glue on the layer of hot glue, then centered the piece of fabric on it to hold before reheating the hot glue.
I took my little iron and reheated the glue through the fabric to attach it to the fabric, careful not to hold it on any spot too long. This did leave a slight residue on the iron, but as I said above, this iron had adhesive residue on it already so could not be ruined further. I would not recommend using this iron on any actually good clothes moving forward though. The goal for this step was to reheat the glue with slight pressure so that the thick layer attaches to both the fabric on top and goes a little further into the pages below.
STEP THREE: THE COVERS
I set the chunk of paper aside and started work on the covers. This is where the Instructable guide helped the most, so most of this section is straight from there.
I cut two pieces of cardboard for the front and back, lining it up with the bound spine and adding a quarter inch on the other three sides. I then set the covers on top of the book and measured the width of the spine and covers to make the spine cover.
It’s leather time baby. I had some in tact pieces of leather as scrap from a different project so that’s what I used as the cover material. Using the basic guide from the article, I measured the leather around the covers with a slight (about 1/4”) gap between each and left a decent amount on each side for tucking and glueing.
Then, naturally, I tucked and glued the leather around the covers. I started by glueing the covers themselves to the leather, then folded all the sides over and glued those as well. I weighed all of this down and left it overnight to dry.
STEP FOUR: ATTACHING EVERYTHING
Time for the real magic to happen. I took the giant chunk of paper and fabric and set it on the covers, spine to spine, setting the fabric “wings” across the front and back covers. Then, I glued those “wings” to the covers, careful not to glue the spine down to allow for movement while reading. Then I left it for a while to dry while being weighed down.
I then took the parchment paper and folded it in half. Tucking the fold of the parchment into the crease between the front cover and the first page, I cut it to size then glued it into the book, then weighed it down to dry for a little while. I did use a ruler in this step to make sure the fold was as flush to the crease as possible.
I also used the time while the pages were upright to trim any excess left that I could.
After that, I went through and pasted together the marked excess pages (from photocopying) to the blank pages in front of them to make it less confusing to read.
STEP FIVE: FINISHING TOUCHES
I might as well make it look pretty, right? I took the maps from the front of the paperbacks and pasted them into the front (Empire of Storms) and back (Tower of Dawn) of the book, collage-style. I then cut the small titles of each book and pasted them on their respective map.
Then, as all artists should, I signed my work on the back corner of the book, along with the year.
Photos by Anthony “Tony” Lucy
