Perfect Gift: Leather Bind a Favorite Paperback

Bookbinding lore can get pretty esoteric (never paste a super to a signature without a bone folder!), but it's actually pretty simple and easy to turn a $10 paperback into a great gift (or addition to your own collection). This is my simplest and most elegant method yet, and for the first time I recorded video of the whole process.

How this method is different:

1. My first successful method used thin chrome-tanned leather over cardboard. It worked great, but you needed a laser to make any artwork on the cover, so it was a little limited in usefulness.
2. My next method used a very similar structure, but I figured out a way of adding extra cardboard cutouts to the structure under the leather to make pretty cool 3D designs using thin, flexible leather. Still a great method if you're not into tooling leather.
3. My last method was to tool thick veggie tanned leather for the front and back covers but use a thin, flexible leather for the spine. This worked great for rebinding my Bible (and my wife's, and my dad's, and my sister's) and holds up well, but...
4. ...My new method combines the lessons learned from these other methods to make the simplest, most elegant leather-binding method yet. It requires a single piece of medium-thickness leather with no cardboard backing structure. This makes it flexible enough to open easily, thick enough to take tooling (optional), and feels great in your hand.

Note 1: Tooling the leather is totally optional for this method, but if you want to take it on, I'll show some techniques both for the hand-crafted-art sort and for the design-in-CAD-and-make-it-perfect 3D printed sort.

Note 2: I'll show my projects to leather bind Ender's Game and Bartimaeus Book 1. If you know and like those books, chances are you'll enjoy my latest novel, Soulwinder, which Reader's Favorite called "utterly immersive... unique worldbuilding... I could hardly put this book down... a spectacular, unforgettable read!"

For tools, you'll mostly need basic craft tools - scissors, ruler, razor, paper, glue. A cutting mat and some heavy weights come in handy. If you want to tool the leather, you'll need either some basic leather tools (hammer, swivel knife, beveler) or a 3D printer and some clamps.

As for materials, you'll need:

1. A book (I just get the cheap paperback version of the book I want to bind)
2. A piece of leather (not too thick - 3-4 oz veggie tanned leather is my go-to.
3. Note 1: 3-4 oz means about 1/16" (or 1.5mm) thick.
4. Note 2: Veggie tanned leather is the kind you can stamp and tool - if you don't plan to do this, you can get chrome-tanned leather instead. Anything about 1/16" that you like will be fine.
5. A few sheets of paper
6. These will be for the "end papers" (beginning and end of the book). 12" x 12" is a good size for most books and is commonly available in whatever color or pattern you could ever want.

Yep, just grit your book-loving teeth and tear them off. Front and back. Leave the glue on the spine intact.

Endpapers are the decorative papers at the beginning and end of a book, and also the "hinge" that holds the cover onto the text block.

1. I usually find 12"x12" scrapbook paper at Hobby Lobby or Amazon.
2. If 12"x12" isn't big enough, you can glue two pieces together (see diagram) - the seams will never be seen since one will be glued to the cover an the other will be in the crease of the fold.

Fold in half along the paper's "grain direction".

1. Balance the paper in your hand. It will bow in one direction easier than the other. Fold in that direction.)

You can either cut the paper to perfectly match your book now, or you can trim it after gluing (better).

Stick one endpaper to the front, one to the back.

1. Folded edge goes on the spine side of your book.
2. Use PVA glue (Elmer's glue is PVA and is probably fine, or there are fancier "acid free" versions of Elmer's made specifically for bookbinding).

Use a knife to trim the endpapers to match the book.

1. You could also just cut them exactly right before gluing, but measuring is for nerds...

Clamp your book between some dumbbells (or books, or rocks, or in a bookbinding press if you're fancy) and reinforce the spine with some extra glue.

1. Most paperback books are bound this way, with no stitches, no reinforcement, nothing but glue on the edges of the pages. It's pretty strong. If you're using an old book with pages falling out, you can actually repair it this way, using a "fan binding" technique (here's a good little tutorial).

This one is more tradition than strictly necessary (I think), but it's so easy that I've never tried skipping it to see how it effects things (if you do, please let me know). Just get some fabric (anything non-stretchy, you'll never see it) and stick it on the spine.

1. Make it a little shorter than the book and wide enough to overlap about an inch on each side
2. This thing is called a "super"... if you want to go down a deep rabbit hole, search for "best material for bookbinding super". Or don't and just use what you have.

A little more glue and stretch it tight. Both sides.

Headbands are decorative pieces that go on the top and bottom of a book spine. They probably used to have a structural function in older bookbinding methods, but on most modern books, they're decorative. You can buy them very cheaply (search for headbands bookbinding on Amazon) or make your own with fabric and string (see this video). Then just cut them to size and glue them on, top and bottom.

Ok, we're nerds, we have to measure.

You need height, width, and depth.

If your book is:

1. Width "W"
2. Height "H"
3. Depth "D"

Your piece of leather needs to be:

1. 2W + D + 0.75" wide
2. This is enough to cover the front, back, spine, and have extra for overlap and roundness on the spine
3. H+0.25" tall
4. This is enough for overlap

For example, if you had a 6x9 paperback 1" thick:

1. W = 6
2. H = 9
3. D = 1

Then you'd cut a piece of leather:

1. 2W+D+0.75 = 2*6+1+0.75 = 12+1+0.75 = 13.75" wide
2. H+0.25 = 9+0.25 = 9.25" high

Use scissors, a knife and a cutting mat, a round knife... whatever your favorite way to cut a big rectangle is.

If you have a 3D printer, you can get really nice designs by:

1. Finding a silhouette logo online
2. Auto-tracing the logo to create a vector file (SVG or DXF)
3. I do this in Inkscape, others use Sketchup, Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw...
4. Turning that SVG into a 3D file
5. I use Fusion 360 and the "import SVG" function, making the design about 2mm thick
6. 3D Printing (remember to mirror the design). Regular old PLA (or whatever's handy) works fine.
7. Casing the leather (wet it with a sponge and wait till it looks almost dry)
8. Clamping the 3D-printed tool to the leather (for about 5 minutes seems to work).

Here are a few tutorials that outline this whole process:

1. Youtube video covering how to convert a logo to a vector file to a 3D file (Inkscape and Fusion 360)
2. Youtube video covering the 3D design and clamping process (Fusion 360)
3. Instructable on doing the whole process in Sketchup

If you have a few basic leather tools, you can:

1. Sketch a design
2. Case the leather.
3. Use a "modelling tool" (or a blunt pencil, or a chopstick) to trace your design onto the leather
4. Use a swivel knife to score the pattern lines (remember to re-case the leather as it dries out)
5. Use a beveler to raise the edges of your design
6. Optionally, add shadows with background tools or go back to the swivel knife for decorative cuts.

See the video for what I did, or check out Tandy Leather's how-to videos, or Youtube "leather tooling" or "leather carving" for tips and tricks from people who are much better at tooling than I am. This is something you might want to practice first on some scrap leather; it doesn't always look great your first time.

If you used veggie tanned leather, you'll probably want to put something on it to protect it (if you used chrome-tanned leather, no need). There are a thousand ways to do this. I always do some variation of Don Gonzales' method, which never turns out as good as it does in his video, but always turns out decent:

1. [optionally] add some oil (olive oil or other) to the leather to soften and darken it. go easy if you do.
2. Add Tan-Kote or another clear finish as a resist (to keep the next layer from soaking in too much)
3. Add antiquing gel or some other darkening finish (trying especially to darken up the tooling marks)
4. Finish with more Tan-Kote or clear finish.

Glue the cover on.

1. Make sure the book is facing the right way
2. Glue the front endpaper to the leather
3. NO GLUE WITHIN ABOUT 3/8" - 1/2" OF THE SPINE. If you glue close to the spine, there's no room for the book to flex when it opens.
4. Repeat on the back of the book and other side of the leather.

Put a piece of paper inside the front and back of the book to catch any glue drips, then stack things on top of the book so it can dry nice and flat.

Admire it, smell it, read it, wrap it up as a gift, and pat yourself on the back.

If you enjoyed this Instructable, check out:

1. My website, where you can find my fantasy novels and my blog (mostly Mythbuster-esque articles doing engineering analysis of fantasy and science fiction).
2. My author Facebook page, where I put quotes I like and occasional deals or news about my novels.
3. My novels on Amazon / Audible.

Thanks for reading!