#devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes

[gender-trash]

(i am seriously late in posting about this due to The Problems BUT whatever! its here now!!)

somewhere around late november 2022, i asked my dad "hey are there any out of print technical books you'd like a reprint of for christmas?"

he linked me to a dubious black-and-white pdf of Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy. now, i wound up checking out a copy through link+, and the original edition is a really nicely put together book! the chapters are themed around various types of measurements (length, angle, etc), and they all have these cute little diagrams which the endpapers reuse in a lil repeating pattern... the image captions are done in this really lovely dark red that did not scan for SHIT... tons and tons of diagrams and illustrations and images (both color and b&w)... just, all around, a fucking nice book!! (see also @morrak's post about it here.)

and that made me feel kind of bad about the crappiness of the pdf, which is where the Problems began. i used my phone to take pictures of all the photos and color diagrams in the original and went about replacing them in the pdf, using what turned out to be the world's worst pdf editing software (i also got through replacing all the image captions in chapter 1 of 5 before my dad convinced me to give up). i did NOT finish the pdf editing before christmas 2022 (i was going somewhat off the deep end, because both my housemates were away visiting family and i had zero external structure in my life so it was just me and my cat and this stupid FUCKING pdf wrecking my sleep schedule together); i poked away at it for most of the rest of my time off and then got so goddamn sick of it i put the project away for months. "it'll be a birthday gift instead", i said optimistically (my dad's birthday is in april! it should have been enough time!)

gentle readers, i did not finish the pdf editing by april. mostly because it was such a miserable slog that i put it off until the last possible moment and then tried to make up for it with another death march.

hating both myself and the project again, i decided i was Not going to let myself typeset Anything Else before it was done, and then took a break to bind my immortal (using the renegade publishing typeset! i didn't do any typesetting!!). SURELY, i said, i can finish this in time for christmas 2023.

i'm sure you know where this is going.

in my defense i DID finish the pdf editing by christmas, despite first doing every other possible procrastination project (including a second edition of the little second century warlord book), because by this point my dad had managed to convince me to lower my standards. on the evening of the 22nd i kicked off the print job and said to myself "this will finish printing overnight and then tomorrow i can work on sewing the textblock!"

late on the 23rd, after lots of babysitting and using at least one cartridge of every color ink in my printer, the print job was finally done. (my sweet and lovely cat wants SO BADLY to hunt and stalk the printer while it is printing -- more specifically, the printed pages, i think because they tend to make noise and move and then STOP moving. for this reason, the printer is kept in the craft room, because the cat can be shut out of the craft room and thus prevented from chewing on the pages when i have an all-day book printing job going. unfortunately the craft room was also being pressed into service as a guest room at the time so 80% of the floor space was consumed by an air mattress which i had to repeatedly trip over in order to reach the printer and replace the ink cartridges.)

then i went to my parents' house on the 24th and 25th and apologized to my dad (again) for not having the book finished. but this worked out well because we finished putting together my awesome new book clamp:

(the feet still aren't done being painted so they're just dry-fit on for now but you can still clamp books in it and that's what matters!!)

i came home, sewed the textblock (french link stitch over four linen tapes, with sewn endbands made of variegated embroidery floss over linen cord, and kozo paper glued over the spine)

... and promptly realized i SHOULD HAVE PUT IN MORE OF A GUTTER because some of the text was getting reeeeeeal close to the spine. "it's fine!" i said. "i just have to make sure it lays flat!! what better time than to try out K118 binding, a technique i have literally never done before and which people on the bookbinding discord notoriously have a hard time pulling off first try! i even have tyvek tape for it!"

so it turns out that tyvek tape isn't actually tyvek with glue on it, it's tape FOR attaching pieces of tyvek TO EACH OTHER, which maybe i could have guessed if i'd done even the slightest amount of research or planning. at this point i think it was the 27th and i was still angling to get this thing done by new year's, so no time to order Actual Tyvek.

fortunately, i had ALSO received An Package in the mail with yarn for a totally unrelated knitting project... shipped in a tyvek envelope.

i peeled all the shipping labels and stickers off my tyvek envelope, cut that shit up, and glued it on there.

and THEN it was time for gluing on covers, which i thought was going to be easy because i had actually thought ahead and ordered materials (specifically acid-free museum board), except when i cracked open the box of museum board i decided i Didn't Like It because the surface was too soft and easily dented, so i glued onto it the too-thin board material i'd previously been using (so that the cardboard goes on the outside of the book). this worked super well (the cardboard stuff has a tendency to curl up from the glue moisture, but the museum board doesn't!) and i'll probably use it on other stuff in the future.

i thought the blue bookcloth i used was kind of boring but i showed my dad the available cloth options and he really liked it, so... what do you know? i cut the piece i used on the back cover very slightly too short but it wound up being covered by the leather, so you can barely tell.

and the leather... a scrap just baaaaarely big enough from my bag of leather scraps from discount fabrics... and this the first time i'd ever attempted to put leather on a book... AND YET the only complaint i have is that i didn't manage to put an even amount on the front and back. it's reasonably square and straight!! amazing!!

i am super super happy with how this project came out (especially given the number of problems i encountered) and oh my god check out how much the spine bends

AND, AS A NEW YEAR'S PRESENT, I FINALLY MANAGED TO GIVE IT TO MY DAD

#and promptly got sick after i got home from my parents' house. #which is part of why this post was so long delayed #the trashcan speaks #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes #bookbinding

[mu-qingfang-stan-account]

today i woke up and said to myself "let's typeset and bind @verycharismaticdragon's fic A Transmigrator and a Time Traveler" because i reread it yesterday and overnight i was consumed by a Vision where the chapters would start on recto pages and then on the verso there'd be a fullpage tarot illustration of the corresponding major arcana card. (dont ask me what will happen with ch21 because i Don't know.)

"this will be easy," i said. "i've seen like three different people doing mxtx major arcana illustrations. i bet if i combine all of those and use only the scum villain ones i can cover all the chapters."

nope, i've found *checks notes* FOUR usable scum villain tarot illustrations. and also they aren't really related to the chapters which anyone could have predicted but which i feel weird about. (although if you haven't checked out @sumeriasmith's mxtx tarot project yet YOU HAVE TO. i am primarily an oil painter so watercolor is like black magic to me i dont understand how they do any of this but im soooo fucking hype for them to finish binghe as the emperor)

"ugh," i said. "fine. i will find a generic tarot major arcana svg set in a nice style, because i hate the og rider-waite illustrations. there has to be a ton of them" and unfortunately yes there ARE but ALL OF THEM ARE MADE BY DESIGNERS WITH BAD TASTE. why is the tower just a pile of crystals or a hand or some shit. why did you spell chariot as "charriot" (and this was the least objectionable one i found!)

i also discovered:

the unicode codepoints for the tarot major arcana (h/t @twocubes) except theyre from tarot noveau and thus useless to me

hanafuda cards (also irrelevant, but very pretty) (inb4 "you're such a weeb" ...there is a half-finished painting of itachi from naruto in my garage right now. of COURSE i'm a weeb.)

unicode codepoint tarot deck (i wont lie to you, i'm tempted, but it seems thematically inappropriate for scum villain unless i incorporate it into my own tarot card illustrations which i am trying to NOT do here)

and finally ordered the ikea tarot deck off etsy (after years of vacillation) (this is the first tarot deck i have ever purchased because i don't "believe in" tarot or w/e but the concept of ikea tarot is very VERY funny to me). all in all, not a hugely productive afternoon :/ perhaps i will return to the tarot issue later and start doing some actual typesetting now?

OH ALSO does anyone have Body Text Font Opinions or should i just flip a coin to decide between alegreya and baskerville again. (one benefit of alegreya is that i already edited the font files to add ǎǐǒǔ characters...)

#HI MY NAME IS SPHERE AND I AM A PERFECTIONIST #the trashcan speaks #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes #diversity win: your unreliable narrator is gay

[gender-trash]

now that i know how to do drop caps in latex i physically cannot be stopped

(EDIT: here is the original post c/o tumblr user @romanceyourdemons!!)

#the trashcan speaks #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes

[gender-trash]

texts you get from me when you support my patreon at the roommate level. anyway do you want to see the chinese website about lab mice that constituted the endpoint of my quest? yes you do

and this INCREDIBLY important banner ad

#thank u model animal resource imformation (sic) platform i owe u my life #the trashcan speaks #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes

[gender-trash]

update: i made a script for downloading fics with workskins from ao3 as epubs complete with workskin styling! i've tested it on exactly two (2) fics so uhhh if you try it out and it breaks please file an issue or send me anon hate or something and i'll take an peep

#the trashcan speaks #I AM. EASILY NERDSNIPED BY THESE THINGS #datahoarding tag #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes

[gender-trash]

not a big fan of deckle/untrimmed fore-edges in general but i especially hate when perfect bound books have faux deckle edges. bitch who are you trying to fool. NOBODY thinks this was printed on paper from a mould and deckle AND it makes it harder to flip through! trim that shit off!!

#the trashcan speaks #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes #like okay often perfect bindings are done by folding the pages into signatures and then trimming the spine edge #so it does make sense that you'd end up with page creep #but fuck page creep all my homies hate page creep #trim! his! ass! #and again. its a perfect bind so i KNOW you have a guillotine #JUST TRIM THE FORE EDGE INSTEAD OF FAUX DECKLING IT

[gender-trash]

things i have done in the past few days instead of working on my dad's christmas gift, a bookbinding project for which the typeset is NOT done (even though christmas is in *checks notes* 3 days, one of which i will be spending at my parents' house baking cookies):

knit an entire hat for @transbionic-shieldmaiden

edited and posted a chapter of my fanfiction

worked on knitting a mitten

cleaned up charts and wrote up v0 of the pattern for said mitten

typeset v2 of the Second Century Warlord pamphlet, this time with author's notes, the followup/extra, illustrations, and illustrator's notes

posted a lot about bookbinding on tumblr dot com

#the trashcan speaks #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes #fiber arts #uhhh if you want to beta test the mitten pattern dm me #im eventually planning to sell it but idk how to write knitting patterns for people other than me to understand

[gender-trash]

Hi!!! I used to work in book production!!! If you want some more tiddly bits about it...

Perfect binding is done by essentially grinding or chopping off the gutter of the pages to make that nice square edge before it's glued. This is still cheaper than other types of binding, and that's why all the individual pages can be pulled out. However, quality book manufacturers do stress testing on this to ensure that the glue holds up under a certain amount of the page being pulled. Well done perfect binding with quality glue can withstand a lot!

When the signatures are sewn together then glued, that's typically smyth sewn. This method is great because you can make them lay flat, but I'm less familiar with smyth because, unfortunately, most publishers customers aren't super concerned with quality and want to produce their books cheaply, so I saw the smyth machine in action less frequently.

The weird glue process you mentioned is probably notch binding. In notch, the signatures have perforated spines ("notches"), which get filled with glue and sort of act like a liquid seam. It doesn't require sewing, but typically looks more professional than perfect binding. The only downside (of course this can happen with any binding but it's most prevalent here) is that you have to make sure the glue doesn't seep in between the pages and cause the margins to stick together. That makes it hard to read, and you may have come across a book before where you needed to pull some of the pages apart to fully read what's in that area closer to the spine!

I loved working in book manufacturing. It was so fun to see the ways books came together.

!! ty for the vocabulary!!

also yes yes YES it is so magical to make a book from scratch i feel like a wizard :0

#the trashcan speaks #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes

[gender-trash]

just thought to myself "ooh i could dockerize my latex build environment and put all the fonts in there so i can get reproducible typeset builds on any machine" i need to be taken out back and shot. unrecoverably programmerpilled

#the trashcan speaks #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes

[gender-trash]

guys, i thought tyvek tape was going to be, like, tyvek with glue on it? it's NOT. it's just glorified packing tape :(

HOWEVER, in my time of need i happened to receive a package of yarn for a completely unrelated project... shipped in a tyvek envelope >:)

and so:

this actually worked fantastically well i highly recommend Serendipitous Shipping Envelope. i was kind of scared of k118 given the problems that people on discord seemed to be having with it but it went SUPER smoothly (except for the cover i glued on crooked and needed to extend with a tiny triangle of offcut material). 10/10, im obsessed with k118 now

#the trashcan speaks #UPCYCLING #now i just need to find my leather scraps TT__TT they are HIDING FROM ME... #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes

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Hi! I have been interested in learning how to make sewn in hardcover books, but whenever I look for guides, they are people just making themselves a sketchbook with not a full on cloth bound hardcover, etc.

Additionally - when trying to find what are good beginner supplies am struggling to find what is recommended. Book boards on Amazon that had reviews saying it was too flimsy... bookbinding kits online that literally have the same waxed thread as leatherworking kits etc,, no idea where to find unwanted linen thread....

There was a gentlemen who teaches bookbinding at sca events id reached out to, but hadn't heard anything back because I'm sure his schedule has been busy.

I know this is a huge ask, but do you have any books or websites or guides you suggest for learning any of these things and for learning what to search for? If these things are listed in a tag or faq, I am sorry I didn't see them when I did a cursory search of your blog after I saw your bookbinding critique post that petermorwood reblogged

YES HELLO JOIN USSSSS!! reject the tyranny of Big Book*!!!

* in the "publishing industry" sense, not in the sense of binding a really thicc boi (which is both allowed and encouraged)

my main recommendation is to check out @renegadepublishing's resource links page (and join the discord if that's your vibe!) and in particular @armoredsuperheavy's tutorial for doing a basic case-bound hardcover, which is how i bound my first hardcover :3 or if video tutorials are more your jam, people on the discord really like DAS bookbinding's youtube channel. also! if you ever happen find yourself in san francisco, definitely take a couple hours to check out the bookbinding museum -- they have a bunch of examples of different binding techniques you can hold in your sweaty little hands and stare at until their secrets are revealed to you >:)

i won't certify that these are good supplies recommendations For Beginners but here's what i use:

lineco (acid-free) book glue you can find on amazon, but i also really like glue stick and double-sided tape formats which are less messy. i love these silicone brushes for applying glue because you literally don't have to wash them you just let the glue dry and then peel it off later. very satisfying

lineco's little packages of linen tape are so fucking overpriced :/ i got a couple rolls from burnleigh & trowbridge a while back and it's literally exactly the same stuff but way cheaper per unit length (or if you don't want a whole roll you can buy it by the yard)

you can also get unwaxed linen thread and beeswax off burnleigh & trowbridge but i ran out and switched back to cheapo prewaxed linen thread (it works equally well!). (i assume "unwanted linen thread" was a typo for "unwaxed linen thread" but if you are using linen thread you absolutely want to wax it -- otherwise it is Badly Behaved)

i bought linen cord (not needed for just A Basic Hardcover but fun if you want to experiment with medieval cord bindings) from talas (which is a specialized bookbinding website that also sells bookcloth and stuff)

this is a nice little beginner kit that comes with an awl, a bone folder, and a punching cradle that will fit half-letter books (it's annoying how you have to constantly screw and unscrew the little clamping screws but it IS functional). for bigger stuff i also have this punching cradle (i had to glue some sacrificial board strips to the bottom to actually get enough room for the awl to punch a decent sized hole, which is annoying). please send a signal flare if you find a Secret Good Punching Cradle...

i actually don't really like any of the book boards i've used so far either, which is maybe because i've been buying cheap crap off amazon (most recently this, which was far too thin; i always wind up gluing two pieces in a stack and then it always curls up even though i put it in the clamp and i Don't Like That). i plan to experiment with museum board soon and i will attempt to keep everyone updated on how that goes

also not a Beginner Supply but this is the beast i refer to as Madame la Guillotine and i love her so so much

wrt book clamping, i am VERY NEARLY DONE making a fancy-ish wood clamp with my dad, but all of my bookbinding has been done with a combination of scrap plywood, random thin hardcover books i don't like, woodworking clamps, and just leaving things under a heavy textbook while the glue dries (my go-to is CLRS)

i hope this helps you in some way!! please keep me updated on your bookbinding endeavors i wanna see what you make :O

#the trashcan speaks #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes #< is my bookbinding tag if u want to read more #sorry. it's not very self-explanatory :/

[gender-trash]

so I just saw your post about books and their binding, had a look at my "hardcovers", and am now annoyed. I already felt like something was off with hardcovers I'd bought lately, and now I know what it is! so now I was wondering, is it possible to rebind a book that has all of the pages glued in in one big rectangular block? To get it like the one with more flexibility, where the pages aren't completely stuck to the spine?

i talked about this more here; it is possible to rebind a perfect-bound book, but it's going to be a lot of work and may not necessarily be Worth It. alternatively, if individual pages are falling out you may want to try to warm up the spine adhesive and re-stick the pages in (like i mentioned in the other post, perfect-bound books usually use a thermoplastic adhesive, basically hot glue), or do something hacky with book glue and/or book tape (do NOT use regular-ass scotch tape on books you care about preserving!)

#the trashcan speaks #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes #< is my bookbinding tag if that's of any use to you

[gender-trash]

I forwarded your latest bookbinding post to some bookbinder friends of mine, and now they want to know more about your press. Did you make it yourself, or was it a kit from somewhere?

(the Boy in question, for context)

yeah my dad and i made it out of scrap plywood left over from my desk! the screw is actually from a bench vise hardware kit of some kind, if i recall correctly, but i don't have the link on hand because my dad ordered it :(

im super happy with how it came out -- compares extremely favorably to:

two pieces of scrap plywood with wax paper taped to them, held together by quik clamps carefully balanced on a nearby sewing machine

similar setup but with random hardcovers instead of scrap plywood

leaving things underneath CLRS (although my copy of CLRS still lives permanently in the bookbinding zone...)

(also a lot of the homemade book clamps i've seen have two platens with threaded rods + wingnuts at the corners, but i like this setup better even though it's more work to build because there's only one thing to tighten down)

at some point i'd like to make a vertical version, probably with similar hardware -- i don't like doing spine glue-up sideways because all the glue tries to drip off :( but first i wanna finish making a Punching Cradle That Doesn't Suck, so. it might be a while.

#the trashcan speaks #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes #it would be NICE if the vertical press also had a detachable plow jig so i can trim Big Chonkers that dont fit into madame la guillotine... #ah christ im not getting this thing built anytime soon am i

[gender-trash]

oh i forgot to post this when i finished it but i think my first tikz tarot card can be considered a success :D

#the trashcan speaks #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes

[gender-trash]

OKAY. SURE. WHY NOT

#the trashcan speaks #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes

[gender-trash]

also i finally re-found the tutorial for my personal favorite bookbinding technique, sewn board binding! personally i like it a lot better than casing-in books because i have not once managed to glue the case onto a book squarely and in correct alignment, and with sewn board binding it's much, much harder to fuck that up :p

#the trashcan speaks #devil venerable also wants to exploit the memoir class for evil purposes