
Printing and binding your own books and manuals (2003) - clishem
https://uazu.net/notes/binding.html
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jimnotgym
>Originally I made myself one out of softwood, but I found that the wood bent
too much and didn't give an even pressure over the spine when the nuts were
tightened down

Never made a bookpress, but have transferrable knowledge. You didn't need a
rigid piece of wood, you need a piece with a slight curve so the middle
touches first and the edges after. When the nuts are tightened it will go
straight but be pushing hard in the middle. In case you don't have a bent
piece of wood, you can plane or even sand the subtle curve (I would guess 3mm/
1/8" would do for an A5 book). I am itching to try this.

'Real' books seem to have some kind of linen scrim rather than tissue. I
should imagine this helps with tensile strength like glass fibre tape does to
GRP. Evo stick has a very pungent solvent smell, worth taking care of
ventilation to avoid getting high

~~~
13of40
> a piece with a slight curve so the middle

Sounds like an ideal job for a 3d printer. You can program in the thickness,
height, and amount of flex, and as long as you print it with the vertical axis
vertical the "grain" of the print will make sure it flexes instead of
breaking.

(Personally, I just use a hole punch and zip ties when I make books, though.)

~~~
saywatnow
> Sounds like an ideal job for a 3d printer.

Or, you know, a piece of timber and some sand paper.

The consumer-grade 3d printers I have exposure to would have trouble with some
combination of piece length, tensile consistency, strength and durability
you'd want in a book press. Printing alone would take longer than sanding and
drilling. And I suspect a printed part wouldn't be so forgiving of adjustments
made after manufacture.

Using the 3d printer because it's fun and a learning experience is fine, but
calling it "ideal" when it doesn't offer any real improvements over the
cheaply and easily made "traditional" material is going a little bit too far
:-).

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13of40
I absolutely disagree. Printing might take longer than sanding and drilling,
but: I can model it in code, I can make sub-scale proofs of concept, and when
it comes to actually making the real thing, I can throw it on the printer and
go do something else. While your wife is yelling that you're still in the
garage making noise and sawdust at 8:00 PM, my wife and I will be on the deck
eating barbecue and sipping a margarita. :)

~~~
Angostura
I think you need to buy some quieter sandpaper

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basicplus2
Every person I know prefers reading manuals in paper book form.

Unfortunately with the computer taking over and with price gouging on books
has more or less forced the majority to "put up with" reading on screen.

The system has failed us in not providing on the "promise" of localised (where
you live) instant printing and delivery of cheap books from online.

In my view we have essentially gone backwards because of the advancement of
technology.

~~~
megaman22
The only thing that comes close to the experience of a real book is my 13"
e-ink reader. I spent way too much money on it, but it is pretty fantastic for
reading technical and non-fiction books. I can get by on a phone or a standard
sized Kindle with fiction, but the bigger form factor is just so much nicer,
especially for anything that has maps, or tables, or code listings.

~~~
bruceb
I have been looking in to this. I actually posted a question on why the cost
of larger e-ink readers is so much higher than equivalent tablets:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15787026](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15787026)

Which one do you have?

~~~
megaman22
I got this one [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/13-3-android-e-
reader#/](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/13-3-android-e-reader#/)

I'm not sure if they're even taking orders anymore; I sort of had to whine and
send them a few emails to get them to get it shipped out to me when their
order from the manufacturer came in. But that aside, it's pretty decent piece
of kit, I can actually read PDFs on it, the stylus and note-taking app
actually work really well. I have to side-load an older version of the Kindle
app, which is kind of irritating, but manageable.

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pkaye
I'm doing the reverse... scanning or buying books or manuals into pdf form.

I realized I accumulated way too many books. They take up a lot of space, I
don't read many of the often but would hate to lose the information. Thus I've
slowly converted over the years. Also many pdf format books are cheaper than
paper copy these days. I still keep the important books as paper copy but a
bulk of the rest now fits is a harddrive available on my home network.

~~~
bronco21016
Interested to hear your process for this. I remember a DIY book scanner some
years ago but OCR etc have progressed a lot in the 5 years or so since I last
read about that. Do you have some kind of dedicated scanner? Just photos? What
do you use for processing.

I’d love to do this for the bookshelf of reference books that I still
occasionally reach out to but are taking up a ton of space.

~~~
pkaye
For things like manuals, data books and those that are no longer sold I just
search Google or archive.org for pdf copies.

For other commercial books, the easiest thing is something like
1DollarScan.com which will tear open the book bindings and scan for you.

Other approaches that worked in the past include 1) knew a family member who
worked in a copy store where I could play with a fast scanner. 2) Some
publishers like Oreilly's in the past let you get pdf copies for free or
nominal price if you provide proof that you bought a paper copy. 3) I have
scanner at home for small books or documents but it is usually too much manual
work.

But largely over the past 5+ years, I only buy DRM free pdf books. Many of the
technical book publishers have sales throughout the year on their website
where you can buy books at steep discount. I'm just a pdf book packrat :)

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kqr
I have a huge fascination for technology that doesn't depend on forcing
movement of electrons. I also think it's an important sustainability issue
that we feel at least somewhat responsible to collectively, in our immediate
social environments, don't forget how to do things "the old way".

It doesn't have to start at global scale mutual destruction. A smaller
community can go through a crisis and be left with little means. Does it make
sense to suffer really primitive living conditions while waiting for someone
to come and reinstate the tech we're used to?

Isn't it better if, in addition to hoping for external help, we make an effort
to avoid forgetting our legacy?

In the unlikely event that it's needed, I can still take pen and paper notes
at a hundred words per minute. I can still take and develop film photographs
with expired chemistry. I'll still do fast multiplication with a slide rule.
I'll cook food safely with a mercury thermometer and camping stove, I'll shave
with a sharp blade and be in the next city before you know it on a bicycle.

These are all things you can practise even if you live in a city and deal with
computers a lot.

Edit: Oops, accidental rant.

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ggambetta
Amazing! This is pretty much the method I described in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15877533](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15877533)
last time we discussed amateur bookbinding, except I also did the slits across
the spine and the dental floss. Other than that, even the homemade bookbinding
press looks very similar :)

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bluedino
Hah. Could have used this a long time ago. Used to print manuals after hours
with a copier that punched holes, and used 3-ring binders. But that's
annoying, having a binder full of docs. Comb binding wasn't much better.
Saddle-stitching was okay, but you had to use 11x17 paper and didn't work for
anything of reasonable length.

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salgernon
I bought an Ibimatic punch at a barrage sale a few years ago - it punches a
row of square holes in a page and allows binding using cheap plastic “combs”.
The documents are never quite as satisfying as real binding - perhaps because
I never took the time to resize the texts and the 8x11 format just isn’t well
suited to books.

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ryan-c
I've done this before with gorilla glue (which is easy to find) on the spine,
works fairly well.

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bringtheaction
They have quite a lot of different glues.
[http://uk.gorillaglue.com/products](http://uk.gorillaglue.com/products)

Which one did you use?

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ryan-c
The one that is simply called "Gorilla Glue". Not wood glue, super glue,
epoxy, etc.

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nitemice
Wow! This looks so cool. I really want to try this now, just for something
trivial.

I get the sense that it wouldn't work as well with less than hundreds of pages
though...

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blattimwind
Glued spines can't be used if your block is thinner than a few millimeters or
so. Below that you'd just tack or ring bind them.

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gravypod
I wonder if you could render all of the man pages on your system to 8.5x11 and
print them out like that

~~~
blattimwind
bookman(1) - Generate a book from man pages

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Ascetik
I remember stumbling across this site back in 2004. Amazed someone else found
it.

