Bookbinding Restoration - Quick and Dirty

Just the other day….

My daughter is a teacher at an elementary school and teaches 1st and 2nd grade. Her current class really loves reading - yes, that is possible!

Especially the boys of her class like one book, that has seen some wear and tear over the years. When it recently finally fell apart, they were shocked and my daughter promised to bring it to her dad and that he would try to save/fix it….

Which she did, and which I did. (I should open a hospital for broken toys)

Books with heavy use should be sort of robust, so hardcover books are usually a good choice.

The goal in this case was to return the book to service asap - like tomorrow:

1. It’s an old book, but not meant for a museum, so no need to restore it to the original condition.
2. There is no need to make the book look new, instead it will be appreciated more for being old and repaired instead.
3. The book will be treated well, but must be robust, so the materials employed should be chosen accordingly.
4. Changing a hardcover to a flexible binding with some hot glue would be easiest, but where is the fun in that?

So, let’s redo the book into a hardcover really quickly - like in an hour, or so….

This write-up took much longer, of course. 😉

In the age of multimedia, this project might be viewed by many as waste of time because it is much easier to hand children a phone or tablet and let them watch a video on the relevant topic. It is also much less tedious to use a tablet, than actually interact directly with children. But, my (grown) children still love books and also see it as quite important to hand this experience to the next generation.

Note: Anyone doing this professionally will probably turn over in their respective graves….

Flexible glue (e.g. UHU Soft PVC)

A4 sheet of paper

Small piece of cardboard (frozen pizza package)

2 strips plastic fiber cloth from a bandage sheet (car emergency bandage set) (PE fiber?)

I like to repurpose things, hence the pizza package and bandage sheet….

In the past, I have employed the permanently flexible UHU PVC glue many times for things that will be bent again and again and it has worked more than well. It’s clear, dries to a durable and still flexible, non-sticky material. I have even used it as a surface coating on several occasions. Ok, it stinks for a while, until dry.

This is NOT a product placement! So use any other flexible glue that you may like.

It has simply worked well for me, so I keep using it….

To make flexible hinges, paper is pretty much the ideal material - you can fold and crease it and close and open it countless times, without it breaking and falling apart. Maybe we should use it for books?

Plastic fiber cloth, like in the bandage sheet, is like a flexible fiberglass. Combined with a sheet of paper, it is extremely tough and no longer stretchy, so ideal for folding hinges. Since the cloth is permeable, the glue seeps through enough to make it an almost inseparable composite with the paper. The cloth strip needs to be as long as the book binding, and as wide as the binding plus an additional centimeter on each side. It can always be cut back, if need be.

Ok.

Is the patient worth saving?

Children: Yes!

Can the patient be saved?

Me: Sure, why not.

So, let’s plan the OP….

The patient came in four pieces that would need to be separately repaired and then reassembled.

The sketch shows how the book was (A) before age - and kids - happened to it. In (B) we see the state of demise. The planned rejuvenation and needed materials are shown in (C).

As written above, the combination of paper with the plastic fiber cloth ist quite durable and ideal for reinforcing the torn paper. On the back binding the paper also acts as a background for the parts of missing outer book cover.

Almost from the beginning, I had decided to restore the book to its original shape. The easiest way would have been to take a strip of cardboard as the new back binding and apply liberal amounts of hot glue to hold things together. This would have seriously insulted my aesthetics, however. I love how the back of the cover moves separate from the inside binding on a hardcover book, so I just had to redo the look and feel, to make sure that future readers (the kids) would have the opportunity to experience the same. So it’s a tiny bit more work, but much more fun!

I like to preserve everything, so only the most damaged bits are replaced.

The block of pages comprising the book were repaired first. The corners of the page-binding were in worst condition and partially further pulled apart to allow for glue to be applied, and then compressed until the glue had set.

This was probably the part that took the longest, and I have no pictures to show for it, because there are many smaller steps involved and also lots of partially torn pages to straighten and possibly mend. The binding is the most important, because it insures the integrity and handling of the book, so take your time. I even glued the paper strip back onto the binding instead of replacing it.

The two covers of the book were next. The frayed corners were simply treated and toughened with glue and pressed back into shape. To preserve all parts of the cover and allow for adding the additional layers of cloth and paper, the outside and inside covers were split from the cardboard inner parts to a depth of about 1 cm.

The back of the book was incomplete, so the damaged cardboard ends were cut short on both ends after peeling the remaining cover back enough to cover the resulting seams. The missing sections were replaced with cardboard of similar thickness - in this case there was a small piece of a frozen pizza box left over from a previous project lying around on my desk, that worked quite well. The cover was simply glued onto the replaced parts to hold things together, the further reassembly would strengthen it enough later on.

on to the next step….

This part is the most smelly, due to the glue, and sticky fingers are to be expected, because the cloth is permeable to the glue and you want the glue to push through, so you get a decent composite like fiberglass.

It’s important to make sure the parts are aligned as perfect as possible to make sure that the remaining page- and cover-edges fit together seamlessly. The more gaps, the more the result will resemble Frankenstein’s monster. Also, nobody wants a crooked book!

So take your time….

I find it best to start with one inside cover of one of the book covers and glue one of the fiber cloth strips onto the cardboard, applying more glue and pressing the inner cover onto it until set.

A bit difficult to describe, but the book cover was then aligned with the block of pages, so that the inside cover page parts aligned perfectly, so that the cloth would act like a strip of scotch tape would in holding it back together from the back instead of being taped onto the front. Does that make sense? I hope with the pictures it’s more easily understood. Anyway, in doing so the cloth strip was also glued to the back of the page binding block.

The same was done to the other book cover, thus recreating the integrity of the inner workings of the book.

After the glue had dried enough to be no longer sticky, the same was started with the outside binding and cover.

First, the second strip of cloth was glued into the outer gap between cardboard and cover of one of the book covers. Then more glue was applied and the strip of printer paper - the same size as the cloth - was glued into the gap, then more glue to adhere the remains of the cover to the paper.

The cloth was then glued to the paper, which could have been done beforehand, but well, I didn’t think….

Next the strip of the back of the book was glued onto the paper, aligning the remains of the cover as well as possible.

The creasing, typical for backs of hardcover books could have been done beforehand, but that would have complicated the alignments, and it will develop with use anyway.

Finally, the other cover was attached in the same way and all loose ends covered with a thin smear of glue coating.

To make it even more durable, the whole book could be wrapped in a clear adhesive sheet, used typically on school course books, but that’s for my daughter to decide….

Fin!

So, a book saved from oblivion, a short and fun project and some happy children….

Hope this will inspire you to better repair a torn book, than buying a new one.

I find this kind of project quite rewarding, just as writing up this Instructable, though probably no one will ever read it.

And if even one child will look into the book and be fascinated and happy, or one person read such a write-up and enjoy it, it was worth it! Believe me.

Always stay fascinated!