I love this accordion binding, and so should you. I ripped it off of Two Fine Chaps, but they ripped it off of someone else, so it’s not that bad of a crime. The main feature with this binding is that you can slide a paper spine in between the bound-in paper and the bookboard, so the book looks conventional enough on the shelf and only reveals its surprises when you start poking at it. I haven’t finished designing the spine yet, so here I will detail the steps required to create this type of binding. Feel free to rip us off – that’s what we’re here for… again (like the last time I posted a step-by-step), I wish stuff like this was easier to find on the net, and so I’m posting it in hopes that some people will find it interesting, and others might be inspired to try it themselves.
The panoramas are printed two-up and then trimmed to size.
Exactly two inches of white space is left on each side - this is what will be adhered to the bookboard
The panorama is carefully folded to create the accordion, which constitutes the text block
The bookcloth has already been cut to size, and Xyron (dual-sided adhesive film) has been applied to the back of the cloth. The wax backing paper of the Xyron is peeled back and the end of the panorama is adhered to the cloth.
The bookboard is placed along the left edge of the bookcloth, centered from top to bottom. The Xyron on the bookcloth will hold the bookboard in place, and the spine will eventually slide in between the paper end of the panorama and the bookboard. Then, using a right-angle edge, two 15/16" cuts are made at the right top and bottom corners of the bookboard, creating two triangles.
Because the bookcloth will eventually be folded over the top of the board, it is necessary to "hem" the edges so that the final product has a clean look. To position the hem right, a right-angle edge is aligned with the top and bottom edges of the bookboard and a dull knife is used to score the bookcloth. (The first 15/16" of this scoring is the cut that was made in the previous step.)
The triangles are folded over the corners of the bookboard.
The top and bottom edges of the bookcloth are folded over the bookboard.
This is the crucial step - if this part gets messed up, the edge of the bookcloth along the spine will be misaligned, and the binding will look messy. Without removing the wax backing paper, the bookcloth is folded over the right edge of the bookboard, and the book is flipped over so the back of the bookcloth is facing up. A straight edge is placed against the edge of the bookboard, and the bookcloth is scored along this edge using a dull knife. When done right, this score will be parallel with right edge of the bookboard.
Now that the remaining flap of bookcloth is scored along the top, bottom, and right edge, the backing paper is easily removed from the center section. Using the score lines as guides, the top and bottom corners are removed.
Before the backing paper is removed from the top and bottom edge, a bone folder is used along the edge of the backing paper to create a precise fold. Because the score line disappears when the backing paper is removed, it is especially important to make a deep impression with the bone folder so that the top and bottom flaps fold down precisely along the score line. Otherwise, the top and bottom edges of the book will be misaligned.
Before folding the right flap over, the top and bottom are checked to make sure that they are 1mm shorter than the top and bottom of the bookcloth. If there is any extra length (in this case there is), this will need to be trimmed, or the back of the bookcloth will be visible when the binding is finished.
Using a straight edge, this excess is trimmed so that it is 1mm shorter than the top and bottom edges of the bookcloth.
Following the same procedure with the bone folder, the right edge is folded over.
Double-sided tape is applied to the folded-over edges so that the entire exposed bookcloth is covered in adhesive.
Before removing the adhesive backing from the double-sided tape, a spare piece of wax backing paper is reapplied to the exposed Xyron, and the bookcloth is folded over the right flap of the bookboard to check the alignment and determine whether any adjustments need to be made.
After the process is repeated for the back cover, the book looks like this.
A couple other notes: I have only ever seen this binding with paper over boards, which is significantly easier, since it doesn’t require the “hemming” in order to make the edge look presentable. Most of the difficulty I’ve encountered so far involves the hemmed edges not lining up correctly, and it took me a few tries to nail down the correct technique for determining the correct place to fold the edges of the cloth over in order to create the hems. Also, I’ve described the technique using dry adhesive (Xyron and double-sided tape), although I suppose PVA could be used. The problems with using PVA are that 1) any warping at all to the boards will make it difficult to insert the spine at the end, potentially ruining the book, and 2) it would take forever to complete the binding, since you would be waiting for the PVA to cure after every step. So, although there are probably some purists out there who look down their noses at people who buy their adhesive in the scrapbooking aisle at Michael’s, it really is preferable to using glue.
So, there it is- from start to finish (assuming all the pre-work is done), binding one of these books takes me between an hour and 90 minutes, although I expect that will get shorter as I become more comfortable with the process.