humlansbokbinderi

[humlansbokbinderi]

This may be a slightly silly question, but I’m curious if you’ve ever been active in any fandoms, and if so, which ones? As in making/sharing fan art, reading fanfic, or even writing some. That’s all, thank you!

Sherlock Holmes Fandom, I guess. I was inducted into the Baker Street Irregulars. And I've written two Holmesian stories, A Study in Emerald and A Case of Death and Honey.

[humlansbokbinderi]

FanFic Pipe Book Press

In 2022, I prototyped an affordable nipping press using black steel pipe fittings. The challenge: To make something under $100, compact, portable, and easy to make without electric tools.

I'm sharing the supply list here (under the cut) with updated thoughts and notes.

Please note that when I've linked to Amazon in this post, I'm using an affiliate link.

Basic Materials

QTY 1 - Press Screw 2 - ½ pipe Mini Flanges 2 - ½ pipe 90° elbow fittings 2 - ½ pipe 4in nipples 2 - ½ pipe 6in nipples 2 - 1x½ pipe hex bushing reducer 1 - 1x1 pipe cross tee 1 - Large hardwood board at least 16"x6" 1 - Smaller hardwood board ~ 9-10" across and at least 6" wide 8 - #8x¾ flat head wood screws

Press Screw The press screw is the crank/long screw in the middle of the nipping press. As of this writing, the most affordable press screws are the one by Pony Jorgenson or the one by ShopFox. For just a little bit more, McMaster Carr sells a beautiful stainless steel hole mount screw clamp from Taiwan.

½ pipe parts These form the bones of this book press. Pipe fittings are designed to be resistant to water pressure and are easy to assemble. You can find some at your local hardware store (cheaper) or order on Amazon. You have the option to use basic black carbon steel pipe or go fancier by using stainless steel. This will likely run you between $40-$65.

Wood & Screws You'll want a hardwood (like Oak, Birch, Walnut, etc.) not a softwood (pine or basswood) for this project to prevent warping. A strong plywood such as baltic birch may work as well. Most hardware stores will cut wood to size for you. The screws are for attaching the pipe to the wood--but, depending on how you want to engineer the press, you could also use bolts.

Additional Supplies

Sandpaper in various grades

Sealant for the pipes (especially if you use pipe that sheds carbon, so you don't stain your books. I used clear coat, you can look into shellac and other finishes that work for you.)

Wood Finish (I used tung oil, you have so many options)

Screwdriver, Hand Drill, or Electric drill

Mallet (if you want to pound the lead screw into the cross pipe

Epoxy to glue the lead screw into the cross, or to affix the base of the screw to the wood.

Optional Upgrades

Use a hole saw to drill through the wood and a forstner bit the size of the flange to run the flange through the wood from the bottom. That way, pressure isn't put on the wood screws and the press will last longer.

Use Rub N' Buff to decorate the press

Use longer nipples, such as 8" or 10" nipples, instead of the 6" to get more daylight.

This press is sized for fanfic binders, but if you want a bigger one you can size up the pipes.

If you can afford thicker wood, especially for the base, you may want to opt for 8/4 wood instead of 4/4 wood.

Happy crafting! Let me know how things go, and if you end up making one, I'd love to see a picture.

[humlansbokbinderi]

[humlansbokbinderi]

i think part of what gets lost when people stress the importance of reading is that it's not purely about imagination or living in someone else's (fictional) head for a while (though this is important). no one is trying to force feed people anna karenina or all of dickens. no one is waiting in line to make you feel stupid or shame you for not liking / being intimidated by whatever assigned reading you were given at 15 and reliving your worst classroom experiences.

all anyone is asking you is that you DON'T outsource your ability to make sense of things to someone else just because it's convenient!!!!!!

[humlansbokbinderi]

Earlier this week I reported on the very depressing for-profit fic pirating happening in certain corners of fandom—but (somewhat coincidentally, timing-wise) I also had the joy of reporting this story on fanbinding, and the work of the @renegadeguild! Featuring the words (and fanbinds) of the brilliant @celestial-sphere-press, @butterfingersbookbinding, and @fanboundbooks (who also talked about Renegade on the most recent Fansplaining episode).

Renegade's binders are strong proponents of the non-monetized gift economy—they truly embody the spirit of fanfiction, in my opinion, both in the communal way they share their work with fic writers and each other, and in the DIY way they approach making books:

There’s a strong parallel between the amateur, instinctive nature of fanfiction and the act of fanbinding. While plenty of fic is penned by formally trained writers, much of it is not. Tiffo, who binds as Fanboundbooks, likens the reverse-engineering involved in teaching oneself both activities. As writers, people try to figure out why stories work. Fanbinders collectively share the process of learning to turn that work into a physical object—tactile, clean, often beautiful. Fic is largely unencumbered by the forms and structures of traditional publishing, and fanbinders approach their work with the same spirit. “People will often say, ‘How do I do this?’ or ‘What’s the rule for this?’” Tiffo says. “The answer that we always try to throw in Renegade is, ‘This is what other people have done, but know that there is no rule to your book—you can make whatever you want.’”

It's a shame seeing people conflate the bad actors of the pirating situation—many of whom don't appear to be in fandom and seem motivated by pure profit—with the work of fanbinders at large, and seeing people scared to try out fanbinding because of the recent news. Not-for-profit fanbinding is just as legal as writing fanfiction, and I don't speak for all fic writers, but if someone ever bound one of my fics, I'd be so touched I would almost definitely weep. 😭

#fanbinding

[humlansbokbinderi]

binderary 2024: 1/3

february is binderary over at @renegadepublishing and this year I decided to take part. my goal for the month is to make three A6 quarto hardbacks with dustjackets, and as a stretch goal another two A6 quartos (with or without dustjacket).

1/3: et Afdeling Q Julemysterie by yours truly

dustjacket: printed on 160gsm Canaletto cream

case: quarterbound square back with the spine covered in evergreen bookcloth of unknown make (I suspect rayon, tissue or paper backed) and the boards covered in 250gsm paper from pack of seasonal papers from Søstrene Grene, patterned with mistletoe. 2mm boards

insides: endpapers are 120gsm paper from the same pack of seasonal papers from Søstrene Grene, patterned with mistletoe, and the textblock is printed on 90gsm Munken Lynx Smooth Natural White

why, yes, mistletoes feature very heavily in this fic ✨✨

those who were around when I was posting the fic will recognise the graphic on the dustjacket and the title page from ao3 and this post. I thought it'd be fun to use it again for the book and then I used the same typeface and colours for the chapter headers and page numbers as well. I've previously bound one of my Afdeling Q fics and for that fic I used recycled brown paper for the dustjacket, obviously I didn't want that again for this fic, but I wanted a nod to the practical brown of casefiles to sort of...tie in...I guess? so for the cover boards I chose a brown paper with a minimalist mistletoe design. the bookcloth is from my stash and the evergreen colour matched the green on the paper perfectly. I'm sure there is an ideal ratio of bookcloth to cover paper when doing quarterbound books but don't ask me what it is I don't know I just eyeballed it

and yes. I am in fact still obsessed with these traumatised and codependent detectives and making them smooch about it is the highlight of my day.

binderary 2024 goal: 1/3 stretch goal: 0/2

[humlansbokbinderi]

You guys rlly don't realise how much knowledge is still not committed to the internet. I find books all the time with stuff that is impossible to find through a search engine- most people do not put their magnum opus research online for free and the more niche a skill is the less likely you are to have people who will leak those books online. (Nevermind all the books written prior to the internet that have knowledge that is not considered "relevant" enough to digitise).

Whenever people say that we r growing up with all the world's knowledge at our fingertips...it's not necessarily true. Is the amount of knowledge online potentially infinite? Yes. Is it all knowledge? No. You will be surprised at the niche things you can discover at a local archive or library.

[humlansbokbinderi]

Bram Stoker’s Dracula, First Edition (1897)

[humlansbokbinderi]

Right, let's talk about HIDDEN FORE EDGE PAINTING

Hey y'all! So many apologies to people who share discord servers with me, but I am bound and determined to be obnoxious with this link. I've done a few books with hidden fore edge paintings, which are in my archives. I spent a month flailing around in frustration trying to find a way to DO this, because this craft is nearly extinct, and mad respect to the artists more skilled than me who post projects to tiktok, but while I love a good spectacle, what I'm really after is a repeatable PROCESS. Also gilding is complicated and I live in an already overstuffed apartment, so I wanted an affordable and simple way to replicate the effect

So, here's what I've got. I gave a presentation about this, and my experiments and successes and failures. I said words, I had books of my own to show in motion, but all the critical info is captured in the slides as well. Martin Frost's masterclass video is linked in there, and that video is a great demo of the process and has a number of helpful pieces of advice, but doesn't totally fit my needs as a bookbinder, or as a non-professional trying to make something Cool without wading too far into the hobby pit.

Unnecessary information scarcity is what drove me to madness over this, so I'm not going to contribute to that problem. Download this file, send it to a friend, post it other places, reformat it for a different venue, I truly don't care. I wrestled this knowledge into being for my own use, which has been done, so now my biggest goal is to spread it to anyone interested.

[humlansbokbinderi]

AO3 Etiquette

It would seem a whole new kind of AO3 reader/writer is emerging and it is becoming clear not everyone quite understands how the website community works. Here is some basic guidance on how most people expect you to go about using AO3 to keep this a fun community archive that funtions correctly:

Kudos is for when the story was interesting enough to make you finish reading. If it sucked or was badly written, you probably left. If you finished - you kudos.

If you liked it, you should comment. It can be long and detailed or a literal keysmash. Writers don't care, we just love comments.

No critisism unless the author has specifically asked or agreed to hear it. Even constructive critisism is a no-no unless an author note tells you it's okay. Many people write as a fun hobby or a way to cope with, among other things, insecurity. Don't ruin that for them.

Do not comment to ask the author to write/update something else. It's tacky and off-putting and will probably have the opposite effect than the one you want.

There is no algorithm, it's an archive. Use the search and filter function to add/remove the pairings/characters/tropes etc. you want to read about and it will find you the fics that fit the bill.

For this to work, writers must tag and rate stories. This avoids readers finding the wrong things and missing the stuff they want. I don't care how cringy that trope is in your eyes - it gets tagged.

Character A/Character B means a ROMANTIC or SEXUAL relationship of some kind. Character A&Character B is PLANTONIC, like friendship or family.

Nothing is banned. This is an implicit rule because banning one thing is a slipperly slope to banning another and another, until nothing is allowed anymore. Do not expect anyone to censor for you. Because of the tags system, you are responsible for your own reading experience.

People can create new chapters and sequels/fic series any time after they "complete" a story. So it's considered perfectly normal to subscribe, even to a finished story. You can even subscribe to the author instead just to cover your bases.

Do not repost stories or change the publishing date without an extremely good reason (like a complete top to bottom rewrite). It's an archive, not social media. No one cares what's the most recent, only what fits their tag needs.

Avoid deleting a story you wrote if you hate it - orphan it so others can still enjoy it, without it being connected to you anymore.

This is a creative fanfiction archive. No essays on your insights or theories please. There are other places for that.

I KNOW there's plenty more I missed but I'm trying to cover most of the basics that people seem to be struggling with.

I invite anyone to add to this, but please explain, don't berate.

[humlansbokbinderi]

exchanging headcanons and AUs with friends like

[humlansbokbinderi]

I think it’s time for us to all collectively return to the library. Get a card, go to a club meeting, volunteer on an off day, rent some equipment. You don’t even have to read a book. But since the digital world is rapidly becoming a subscription-only hellscape requiring a criminal amount of private personal information to use even CASUALLY, the library has become our last safe haven to just exist with information present and not have our labour or information exploited for money.

[humlansbokbinderi]

So a year and a half ago I started working on three very large stories to bind. And here is the last and biggest of those stories.

Story: All The Young Dudes Author: MsKingBean89 Words: 526,969 Fandom: Harry Potter Volumes: 4

Slip case:

I made this box be double walled to help hold up with all the weight of four 450ish page each books. Also added the record player to the top of the case because of the importance and prevalence of the music in the story.

Cover & End Pages:

Fonts used: Well there are 30 of them in these books so I am not going to list them all here. But here is some of them in action and a picture of the colophon for reference.

Scene Breaks:

The story is broken out into nine sections; each of the seven years the boys are at school, the war, and the time after the war. So I tried to find an icon for each section to use as the scene break.

[humlansbokbinderi]

Two books to share today! One is a cute little notebook, done as a text case for the k118 binding style. It's a historical style that isn't common, but, spoilers, I'm in LOVE. Apparently you can do this with an oxford hollow, but I didn't! Without the hollow, it gives you a tight back, which usually makes books kind of stiff (casebindings and modern hardcover books usually incorporate some kind of breakaway spine), but this opens ALL the way. This was done with scrap offcuts for paper and boards, and was also a test for this printed leather, but I had a lovely time with it!

[humlansbokbinderi]

Bookbinding 101

Hey, I made some photo tutorials on how to bind your own book! Come along on this journey with me!

Part 1: The Supplies List

Part 2: The Stabby Part

Part 3: The Sewing

Part 4: The Cover

#bookbinding

[humlansbokbinderi]

Listen to your elders

So last week I posted abut the importance of downloading your fic. And then three days later AO3 went down for 24 hours. No one was more weirded out by this than I was. But while y’all were acting like the library at Alexandria was on fire I was reading my download fic and editing chapter eight of Buck, Rogers, and the 21st Century. And also thinking about what I could do to be helpful when the crisis was actually over.

So first off, I’m going to repeat that if you’re going to bookmark a fic, you really need to also download the fic and back it up in a safe place. I just do it automatically now and it’s a good habit to get into.

But let’s talk about some other scenarios. Last October I lost power for over a week after hurricane Ian. Apart from not having internet or A/C I did find plenty to do, I collect books so I had plenty to read, but maybe, unlike me, your favorite comfort reads aren’t sitting on a bookshelf. So let’s do something about that, shall we?

In olden times many long years ago around 1995 we printed off a lot of fic. It was mostly SOP to print a fic you planned to reread and stick it in a three ring binder. And that’s totally valid today too, but you can also make a very nice paperback with a minimum amount of skill and materials.

Let’s start with the download; Go to Ao3 and select your fic, we’ll be working with one of mine. This method works best with one shots, long fic tends to need a more complicated approach. Get yourself an HTML download

Open up the HTML download and select all then copy paste into any word processor. Set the page to landscape and two columns, then change the font to something you find easy to read, this is your book, no judgement. This is all you have to do for layout but I like to play a little bit. I move all the meta, summary, notes to the end and pick out a fun font for the title: 

No time like the present to do a quick proofread. Congratulations, you’ve just created your first typeset. On to the fun part.

Now you’re going to need some materials:  8.5x11in paper ruler one sheet of 12x12 medium card stock (60-80lb) scissors pencil pen or fine tip marker sheet of wax paper white glue two binder clips 2 heavy books or 1 brick butter knife

You’ll also need a printer, if you’re in the US there is almost a 100% chance your local library has a printer you can use if you don’t have your own. None of these materials are expensive and you can literally use cheap copy paper and Elmers glue.

Print your text block, one page per side. Fold the first page in half so that the blank side is inside and the printed side out:

use the butter knife to crease the edge. Repeat on all the sheets. When you’ve finished, stack them up with the raw edge on the left and the folded edge on the right. I used standard copy paper, because you’re only printing on one side there’s no bleed to worry about. Take the text block and line everything up. Use the binder clips to hold the raw edge in place.

Wrap the text block in the wax paper so that the raw edge and binder clips are facing out. I’m going to use my home built book press but you don’t need one, a brick or a couple of books or anything else heavy will work fine.

Once the text block is anchored down, take off he binder clips and get out the glue.

You can use a brush but you don’t need one, smear some glue on that raw edge.

Go make a margarita, watch The Mandalorian, call your mother. Don’t come back for at least an hour

In an hour smear some more glue on there and shift your brick forward so that the whole book is covered. This keeps the paper from warping. While glue part 2 is drying we’ll do the cover. Get out your 12x12 cardstock

Mark the cardstock off at 8.5 inches and cut it. Measure in 5.5 inches from the left and put in a score line with the butter knife (the back edge not the sharp edge)

Carefully fold the score line, this is your front cover. You have some options for the cover title, you can use a cutting machine like a cricut if you have one, you can print out a title on the computer and use carbon paper to transfer the text to the cardstock. I was in a mood so I just freehanded that beoch. Pencil first then in pen.

Take your text block out from under your brick. Line it up against the score mark and mark the second score on the other side of the spine

Fold the score and glue the textblock into the cover at the spine. Once the glue dries up mark the back cover with the pencil and then trim the back cover to fit with your scissors.

Voila:

I’m going to put this baby on the shelf next to the Silmarillion.

The whole process, not counting drying time, took less than an hour.

If you want to make a book of a longer fic, I recommend Renegade Publishing, they have a ton of resources for fan-binders. 

#fanbinding #ficbinding #pamphlet binding #bookbinding

[humlansbokbinderi]

Paperbacks!

I had some brown packing paper I took from work (we get deliveries every day and everything is wrapped in this sturdy brown paper inside the parcels, and it seemed a water to throw away) as well as some thin board that actually came with an IKEA furniture delivery, the board was layered between components in the box. I decided to try to turn those things into a paperback but hadn’t really thought through how to do it so the first one I made (last weekend) came out a little wonky and for some reason I’d done the turn ins after casing in…it doesn’t look very neat.

But the concept works so I went back to it this weekend and did two more, this time printing titles and a spine symbol on the paper first.

Lookit my very nice breakaway spines in action! Also bonus photo of inside the spine because I used book cloth offcuts to reinforce the spine (instead of paper strips) as I thought the more flexible material would work better.

fics are:

Dean + Cas 4Ever by tuesday (spn, destiel)

A Beginner’s Guide To The Dangers Of Making Out With Your Fellow Athletes At Parties by ineptshieldmaid (yuri on ice, yuri/otabek)

we’re all in the mood for a melody (and you’ve got us feeling alright) by laughtershock (skyfall, 00Q)

#neat! #I need to try this with all the packing paper I've saved