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W Binding

Materials:

Piece of light card or heavy paper 15 x 50 cm
24 A5 sheets of cartridge or other paper
2m thread
2 pieces of 2.5 – 3 mm box board 15.5 x 10.5 cm
Paper to cover and line the card

Method:

Cut three strips 150 x 2 cm from the light card and set them aside.
Fold the card in half, and then in quarters, and then eighths then finally sixteenths and concertina, this will be the spine of your book.
Make 8 sections of three sheets each.
Take a strip of paper or light card the height of your pages, fold it in half lengthways and mark four holes each 3 cm apart down the centre write TOP at the top. This is your template.
Lay each section in the fold of an old phonebook and place the template inside use an awl to make 4 holes in each section.
Repeat for the valley folds of the spine piece.
Take 1m thread and pull it through some beeswax.
Place the first section in the first valley fold of the concertina start on the inside in the second hole.
Go out the 2nd hole in the 3rd out the 4th in the third out the second and in the first then tie off.
Repeat for all the sections replenishing the thread as required.
Thread the three pieces of light card through the stitches on the spine.
Cut two pieces of box board 15.5 x 10.5 cm
Glue the card and paste on cover paper, trim to 2cm all around.
Take a spare piece of card and hold it against the corners at 45 degrees, make a pencil mark and trim (this allows for the thickness of the card and gives a nice finish to the corners).
Finish off the cover with a lining piece which can be either the paper from the book, the paper used on the cover or a contrasting piece.
Glue the tabs from either end of the concertina to the inside of the covers and glue the ends of the tabs to the outside of the cover and press.

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