Binding books- Part 4b: Making the cover

Welcome to part 4b- preparing the covers.  If you have not already read it, you should really read part 4a where I talk about how to prepare the materials you need for the cover.  And if you're new to the blog then you might want to go further back to see the earlier steps in making your own book.

First step of making the cover is to ensure your spine material will be the right size.  Whether you are using paper for your spine or paper backed fabric, you want to make sure that your spine material is the thickness of your spine and about 5cm on each side (so if your spine was 1cm thick, you would want the material to be about 11cm wide).  The height doesn't matter at this point, as long as it is at least 5cm more than the height of your book- we'll trim it later.  Make sure the two long sides of your spine material are parallel and straight.

Have a nice flat, clean working area.  I also like to have some large, flat heavy weights to weight things down while drying as I work.  My university biology and biochemistry textbooks are ideal due to their size and weight but most science textbooks should be fine.  Failing that, large boards or boxes are good (novels tend to be a bit small- the weight does not end up being distributed evenly plus large piles often fall over when provoked).


Place your spine material right side down onto your working area (so black fabric side down for me).  Cover your cardboard spine with a even coat of glue and stick it in the centre of your spine material, ensuring it is nice parallel to the long edges.  Put a weight on it and allow it to dry.

My spine glued to the spine material.  When I measured this it turned out it wasn't entirely even so I trimmed the left and right sides after taking the photo to neaten things up.

At this point you have a choice.  Option 1: you cover the cover boards with your decorative paper first, then you glue the covered board to the spine.  This relies on you having a nice even edge of your spine material.  Option 2:  You glue the cover boards to the spine material first, then add the decorative paper afterwards.  Which you choose is largely a matter of aesthetics.  I prefer to have the fabric material on the inside when using a fabric spine, but that is only because the fabric could fray over time if not 100% glued down.  If your spine is paper then it doesn't matter either way.  Just do what you think will look best.  If you are going to cover your cover boards first, then skip ahead to see a few tips about covering them then come back here when you're done.  On this book I'm going to glue the boards to the spine material, then add the decorative paper.

When you glue your covers down, you don't want the cover to be right next to the spine- if so you'll never be able to shut your book!  What you need to do, its leave a good gap between the spine and the cover so the paper or fabric has room to bend around (remember, it's going to have to bend 90 degrees).  I leave a gap of 0.8 cm from the spine of the book to the cover.  And to ensure the gap is nice and even, I use a few scrap bits of card cut the width that I like.  If you don't want to do this, just use a ruler to ensure that your book cover is not wonky relative to the spine.  Cover the spine material with glue (but NOT the area where the spine spacer goes) and place the cover in place.  Ensure the cover is in line with the spine and that you've left a 1cm gap between the edge of the cover and the spine.  Place weights onto the covers and leave to dry.

Both covers glued down.  The right side still has the book spine spacer (a bit of card cut to size) still in place.
PS- sorry for the bad quality.  Inside photos in winter are fun...

Once it's dry, fold the top and bottom edges of the spine material over and glue down.  Use something blunt but hard to press the paper or material down next to the cover and spine.  Put weights on and let dry.

Top right you can see my 'bone' folder that I used to press the spine material down into the gap.  Alternatively you could use a ruler instead or something blunt with a hard edge.

 Next step is to put the cover on.  At this point you'll find it handy to have some newspaper around or a lot of scrap paper.  The reason for this is that paper loves to wrinkle when it gets wet, particularly when you are gluing large areas at once.  If you are not careful, it means your cover will wrinkle and leave nasty creases in your book cover.  When gluing your covers, as soon as you have glued down the paper, place newspaper on top along with a large, heavy weight (you may also want to put a clean piece of paper between your cover and the newspaper to prevent newsprint smudging).  The newspaper works great at drawing the moisture away from your book cover.

So to put your cover paper on, carefully cover your cover board with glue (thin even coat, not lots and lots that will ooze and make the paper soggy).  Because you want the paper to be stuck to the very edge, I also paint just the hard edge (the bit that will be nearest the spine).  Place the cover paper down onto the cover board, making sure the edge closest to the spine will be straight.  Place down on paper with weights to dry.

Painting the edge of the cover paper with glue will ensure there will be no unglued bit along the edge

Do the same thing for the other side.  Be careful that you have your cover paper the same distance from the spine as the first side or your book will look off balance.

One side of the cover paper glued down, the other being allowed to dry.  Note the book cover is face down on newspaper (and a clean piece of paper to prevent the newspaper smudging my cover) with heavy books on top (I knew that Biochemistry book would come in useful some day!)

When it is dry you can trim the cover paper if necessary.  It should be 3-4 cm from the edge of the cover paper on each side although the exact distance doesn't matter too much as it will be folded over and hidden later on in the process.

A quick note to those who wanted to cover their cover boards before attaching them to the spine material.  In this case, what you first need to do is glue your cover board to the middle of your cover material.  Follow the instructions above for tips on how to prevent your paper from wrinkling while gluing.  Trim the paper to about 3-4 cm excess on each side then fold and glue down the edges as described below.

The next step is to fold the paper over to make everything neat.  Step one is to sort out the corners.  Trim your paper on a 45 degree angle to the corner, so that at the tip of the cover board there is at least 3 times the thickness of the cover board.

Now fold over the paper on the 45 degree angle and glue down.  Use a bone folder or a ruler to press down the paper along the cover board to ensure it is completely stuck down.

Do this on every corner and let the glue dry.  You can now fold up the edges and glue them down.  Don't worry about the little bit of brown cover board because it will be hidden by the endpapers later.

Once all the sides are stuck down place the whole thing under weights again (ideally on some newspaper in case of any remaining moisture) and allow to dry overnight.

Those who covered their cover boards before adding the spine should now jump back up and follow the instructions to add the cover boards to the spine material.  The only thing you have to be particularly cautious of is ensuring the spine material is well glued along the edge so it won't lift over time.  However, be careful with your glue- too much and it will seep out and mark your cover.

That's your cover sorted.  Hope you have kept up so far.  Next tutorial will describe how to add your text block to the cover you just made to finish your book.

Outside of cover

Inside of cover