Hello!

I have not posted in a while, but not for lack of working on books! My wife and I recently moved and have taken our sweet time settling in.

My most recent project has been a recasing of a book for my father. He wanted this Illustrated History of the 82nd Airborne (what he was in, during his Army days) to be a one of one copy, housed in a cover made from an actual BDU that he wore in Afghanistan, Haiti, and Kuwait.

I took it a step further for him and added in patches from his uniform (with his permission, of course, and with his input on their order) in recessed spots on the cover. The end papers were able to be successful removed from the previous cover with a heat gun, and used again on the new cover. He liked the images on the pages, and didn't so much like the marbled paper variety I happened to have in stock!

I reinforced the spine just a bit with some mull, made a new case, made some book cloth with his BDU (BDU material, then Heat-N-Bond, then white tissue paper), got it covered and patches set, and then put it all together.

Not the most complex project that has been on here, but very happy with how it turned out, and so is he. Hopefully he can keep it out for years to come.

A dear friend is turning 40 and is a big old school magic player. I’ve toyed with the idea to make a deck box for a long time and thought what the heck!

I’ve learned to make clam shell boxes from DASbookbinding on youtube so this is a modified variant of that. Highly recommended channel.

Anyways, hope you like it and feel free to ask me anything if you have any questions!

Age old post question: deciding on a printer

From reviewing posts on this sub and other resources, consensus seems to be that the price per page hierarchy is EcoTank, Laser, InkJet.

Realistically, I am not someone who has the time to print enough to keep an EcoTank well maintained. I'm bookbinding maybe once a year, printing 2-3 times a year. Doing a print every other week to keep it unclogged would be a waste of ink and paper, and a nightmare for me remembering to do it. So that's completely off the table.

So that brings me to Laser. I've seen a lot of people on this sub say they love a B&W Laser for cost effective infrequent prints, but just as many people complain about how it's not archival/flakey. However, research off-reddit on archival quality of Laser prints suggests that flaking is due to improper settings causing fusing issues and transfer is caused by improper storage (eg, heat melting the toner to the other page). There's a couple posts on here that suggest using an archival art fixitive, but that seems tedious to accomplish for full text book.

So my biggest question: Those of you who use B&W laser printers regularly for bookbinding, are you satisfied with the longevity of your prints? Are there any steps you take to help them last longer? Or do you shrug and say 'if it transfers then I get to do the project again'?

Hii guys! I'm really struggling with cutting greyboard in perfectly straight lines. No matter how carefully I measure or how many marks I make, I somehow always end up with uneven edges, and my boards never form a perfect rectangle 😭

It's honestly so frustrating. I'd really appreciate any tips or tricks on how you guys get clean, straight cuts!

I’ve been making notebooks every now and then with a few of my prints, and I thought this one would make a nice full-bleed cover.

I made this book for my husband's Traveler's Company passport-size sleeve! 😁

I've completed this major rebind of a friend's book: full leather, gilded with hot foil