Recover Used Books–Part 1

I bought an old copy of Treasure Island several years ago–let’s just say it has seen better days.  The binding is still good, for a paperback book, and the cover isn’t horrible, but I thought it could use some revamping.  I thought you might want to know how.  This will be a multi-post instruction, because it can be a bit time consuming.  Today is part 1.

It might help you to review the parts of a book that I posted Monday–I may refer to some of the terms and other stuff in this.

The first thing you will need is a source of leather (if you want it to look similar to mine).  I am using leather I bought from a thrift store in the form of what was intended to be (but probably never was) a couch.  You can also find inexpensive leather or leather like materials from handbags and backpacks at thrift stores.

Next, you will need a copy of Treasure Island–or whatever book you are recovering.

Third, you will need some press-board (very dense material like paper, but the thickness of cardboard).  I suggest getting it from a hard cover book that you don’t read or like, or that is water damaged–that is where I got mine from.  It still will work just fine.

Now, measure the paperback book from bottom to top of the front cover.  I like to lay mine out on graph paper, but this isn’t a must.  You will need to add 1/4 in to the top and the bottom, but not the sides, because the cover will be slightly offset and slightly larger than the book itself.  Make two covers the dimensions we just got.  There isn’t a spine board for the book we are making, so don’t worry about it (makes the back of the book stiff).

Now, you will want to cut the leather before hand (if you are following my project) because you will want the entire cover layed out, so that you can burn the patterns and designs into it.  This should look pretty original (not in a bad way), once we are done.

To cut the leather, you will need to measure the book (top to bottom and left to right, front cover and back, spine thickness).  You will need to add 3/4 in to the top and 3/4 in to the bottom measurements (1 1/2 in) to allow for the larger cover size, and the the extra beyond that is to allow you to wrap the leather around the cover and glue to the back–this will be explained in a later post.  You could leave 1 inch (2 in total), if you want to make absolutely certain you have enough leather for the project.

You will need to add even more the the measurements that wrap from the right side of the front cover to the left side of the back (around the outside of the cover from front to back).  This is to accommodate the spine of the book, which will not be glued directly to the leather (this will be covered later).  Add approximately the thickness of the book (mine was 1/2 in), plus 1/2 in wiggle room in the spine area, plus 3/4 in on both the front and back for wrap around or 1 1/2 in total (or 2 in, if you wanted the extra here as well).  This becomes roughly the width of the book plus 2 in extra (2 1/2 in for extra).

In essence, the idea is for the cover boards to be about 1/4 in larger around the three outside edges of each of the covers, and to come almost to the edge of the inside cover–this will allow us to treat the paperback book like a different version of text block (see Monday’spost).  The leather you cut to make the hard cover part should make an even bigger rectangle than the cover boards, when laid out.  This is because the leather must cover the outside anda portion of the inside of the cover, so that it will look better than the press-board.

It wouldn’t hurt for you to mark the corners of where the corners of your press board will need to be when you glue the leather on. (3/4 in from each side of the outside edges–or 1 inch, if you went for the extra leather.

Hope your brains aren’t too full.  Monday, we’ll see about burning the cool map pattern into our cover–we may even get to preparing the paperback cover to receive the hard backed cover!

In the meantime, comment me a joke on Wednesday’s post for our contest!