Category: How-to

Flexagons

Britta Gustafson’s Map FlexagonThe other day my friend Cathy sent me to Britta Gustafson’s blog post about her flexagon — a map of three summers in the Bay Area. [If you don’t know about flexagons, they are similar to Jacob’s Ladder toys — flat “books” made from folded paper that are then unfolded, or flexed, to reveal a number of hidden faces. Wikipedia gives the history and probably more than you want to know…] Britta’s post has great pictures plus an animation toward the bottom showing the various panels on the book. Cathy knew I’d like the post because it’s both map & book related. I like that each flex of the flexagon becomes more specific.
Cathy’s email reminded me about the “10 Books in 2 Days” classes Cathy organized several years ago to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the San Francisco Center for the Book. She set up 5 stations a day, each with a different book structure or printing method and different instructor; participants rotated through the stations doing each activity. I was charged with designing a flexagon that participants could make. I found two resources that were a great help — Ed Hutchin’s instructions that number the panels so you can tell if you’ve made the thing correctly when you try to flex the panels, and the Flexagon Portal with more instructions and videos and how-tos for making various shaped flexagons. Ed also has a page of examples with pictures of all the panels.
If you’d like to try to make one, download this PDF of “A Bookmaker’s Bag ‘o Tricks” flexagon I designed for Cathy’s event. It’s 2-sided and has 2 flexagons. The top half is for practice, with the numbers as on Ed’s instructions. Once you’ve mastered the folding, use the bottom half to make the flexagon.

Knotting Issues

Weaver’s KnotI’ve tried to teach myself to knit several times — using a kit I bought (at Target of all places), youtube videos, a book my friend Kate lent me. Nothing took, all I ended up with were cramped fingers and a pile of yarn. Then Kate gave me an in-person lesson, and now I can knit a couple of basic stitches. So when someone posted on the Books Arts list asking how to do a Weaver’s Knot (used to join 2 pieces of bookbinding thread together), I followed all the suggestions (and then some I found on my own) to see what worked best for me. Turns out that a youtube video using a very big piece of rope was the one I would return to first. Here’s some more that were useful.

  • Very cool site with lots of animations and instructions for all sorts of knots. The
    sheet bend is apparently the same as the weaver’s knot
  • To the left is a diagram from David Foster’s Connecting Thread tutorial. It has more photos and instructions and is part of a longer set of book tutorials.
  • And for those that like to read instructions rather than use pictures, here is a written step by step explanation.

    Know anymore that you’ve used?

    • Adhesives: Double-Fan Binding

    Double fan binding

    Quick and easy, the double-fan adhesive or millennial binding is a great solution for turning single sheets into an extremely durable paperback book that opens flat and stays open. Its strength comes from the way the pages are glued, using a double-fanning technique that brings glue just a millimeter or so into the textblock. And its “openability” comes from a pop-off spine that moves independently of the textblock.
    I learned this method from notes by Dominic Reilly, who learned it from Gary Frost. Currently conservator for the libraries at the University of Iowa and author of the Future of the Book blog, Frost is renowned for devising conservation bindings based on enduring mechanical features of historic bindings that he has “deconstructed” and reproduced. In this particular structure, he sought not only to protect a book’s contents and ensure that it opened flat for easy reading but also to incorporate such modern materials as transfer tape and Tyvek and accommodate laser-printed copies and production editioning methods.
    I’ve adapted this structure for my food & exercise diary and Sherlock Holmes notebooks. It’s good for anything that needs to open flat—like a calendar or day planner. It’s also can be used to rebind a favorite paperback book. While it’s an easy book to make, please note that you’ll need access to a guillotine (stack paper cutter) to give the book a final trim.
    Full directions and pictures are available here.

    Double-Fan Adhesive Binding Instructions

    Adhesives: Gluing-up

    I have a love-hate relationship with glue. It’s wet, it gets everywhere (although I’ve learned how to keep it out of my hair), and I have trouble getting my brushes really clean. When I’m at my most frustrated I try to reorient myself by remembering a gluing-up demonstration I saw years ago by Dominic Riley — he held the brush and applied the glue with so much confidence and calm. Much like this youtube demo with Peter Goodwin….

    [youtube UqPJzqLKjU4]

    Letterpress Printing from Plates

    Three Red Hens cardIn the beginning letterpress classes at San Francisco Center for the Book, we teach typesetting the old fashioned way — with metal type, letter by letter. It’s a good introduction to press work, but in practice, almost anyone doing letterpress these days typesets on the computer and then gets a plate made. Some advantages are that you can use any font on your computer, incorporate illustrations, and proof-reading happens before you ink up the press. Erica at Three Red Hens has a nice set of blog posts about the process of creating and printing one of her illustrations from plates (that’s a detail of one of her cards on the right).