When I started my bookbinding hobby it was a famously low-rent operation. Tens of thousands of people have read about how I used a couple of paint stirring sticks and a few binder clamps (my ‘sticks and clamps’ method – check out the video here) to make my first paperback book.
This simple approach inspired a lot of people and even helped one college student pull a doomed project out of the fire:
Lifesaver! Seriously.
“Here i am, realizing that my initial plans to sew my book were not going to work and that i had no clue how to go about binding one of my design projects. And then i come across this article…. gorilla glue, some clips, a couple paint stirrers… all things i have in my dorm room! (Yes, i really did have these laying around my dorm room) and i think! i am saved, so i finish printing the 30 pages of my project, pull out the glue and have a time of it.
Thanks for saving my assignment!”
~Alia D
After the first rush of accomplishment I received, however, the limitations of the ‘sticks and clamps’ approach to bookbinding became very obvious! It got very frustrating for me. I spent hours struggling to line up pages and get them clamped together for gluing. Every time I managed to get the pages in order and get the paint sticks lined up, I seemed to fumble something while trying to clamp everything down.
Once the pages were finally clamped together, I had to remove a few clamps, apply glue, and replace the clamps before moving further along the spine of my new book and repeating the whole process again.
And, it was physically impossible to attach the book cover at the same time – so I had added an unnecessary extra step to the process.
My solution to the whole ‘sticks and clamps’ approach was not very complicated or expensive. The addition of a simple bookbinding jig made the whole process faster and a lot more fun! A little effort and creativity solved my biggest bookbinding problems.