My faux book project

Just a point worth noting that the laser printer technique doesn’t work on colour lasers or larger more office orientated models, because they use toner that fuses at a much higher temperature and you can’t then get that toner to melt again with a laminator or iron.

At my office we have a huge colour printer with toner. I used it, and it actually worked! It may be that our laminator is a bit hotter than usual? I also have cheap home printer, so I'm well set up (if only I could find the cable...)

You can get decent real gold leaf sheets on Amazon (.co.uk at least) for about £5 for 20 sheets of 4.5cm x 4.5cm leaf. I’ve used it for a holy grail replica and I’m working on my own book binding project with some as well. I’m currently also looking for a good way to do a book title in gold on a leather spine that doesn’t involve me buying a hot stamping set. I was wondering if making a stencil and then using that to apply gold size and leaf that would work, one way to find out I guess!

I went and bought some faux leaf gold at the local art store for about the same price as you. It's a brass-aluminium compound that I hope will look OK. Fake gold was used back in the day anyway, so as long as it doesn't have the "sweets wrapper plastic" gold look, I guess I'm good.

There's several sorts of toner pens that can be bought in crafts stores that gold will adhere to. Here's a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCMYx8zpaT0

The trick is to get the toner on to the leather, right? The problem is one can't get the leather through the printer, but if the toner is on, I guess an iron will get the gold to stick. Would a combination of stencil and toner pen do the trick?

If I'm pleased with the gold, I think I'll go for making labels in elephant hide paper. The paper will go through the printer, and comes in all kinds of leathery shades. I was planning on using my trusty permanent marker to give it a proper colour and then ad letters via the printer. As long as the label only covers a small area, I don't think it will stick out as obviously fake.

Eventually I guess I'll have to buy a letter punch set on Aliexpress though...
 
The trick is to get the toner on to the leather, right?.

Yeh definitely. I'm currently thinking about printing the lettering I want (in reverse) from a cheapo home laser printer on to a sheet of acetate, then ironing that on to the leather and hopefully that will then let me iron over some gold leaf.

Other plans involve stencils still, maybe using screen printing technology to make them (since I need ~10pt letters and I'd never cut that out of a stencil by hand). Maybe a toner pen or else gold size could be used with the stencil.

I didn't expect it to work but I did try my metal working letter stamps; I put some gold leaf over a piece of scrap leather and gently cold stamped into the leather. Unfortunately it either cut its way through the leather or else didn't leave a deep enough impression for the leaf to hold in.

I'd still really like a set of proper gilding letter stamps and the stove to get them to the right temperature, but for the amount of books I bind it's still not really viable for me. Even eBay second hand sets are expensive, and often missing the useful letters.
 
Yeh definitely. I'm currently thinking about printing the lettering I want (in reverse) from a cheapo home laser printer on to a sheet of acetate, then ironing that on to the leather and hopefully that will then let me iron over some gold leaf.

When I run my tone-printer sheets through the laminator, any bits of printing leaves a black streak in the folded paper I use around the project, so you idea about doing a transfer with an iron certainly sounds feasible.

I'd still really like a set of proper gilding letter stamps and the stove to get them to the right temperature, but for the amount of books I bind it's still not really viable for me. Even eBay second hand sets are expensive, and often missing the useful letters.

There are some dirt cheap sets available from Aliexpress, I don't know how well they would work though.
 
Oh well.

Tried out using leaf gold (actually fake reaf gold, but stil) gombined with toner/laminator. First off, the leaf gold was a not at all easy to work with! Don't breath, and use a very sharp scissor!

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After a trip through the laminator, the "gold" stuck lightly to the paper:

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Peeling it off with a knife or my sausage finger's didn't work, so I tried an eraser:

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That took of quite a bit of the gold adhering to the toner without taking away all the non-attached gold.

Verdict: Leaf gold is probably better for hot stamping. I need to find a gold foil that looks like gold rather than the real thing.
 
There are some dirt cheap sets available from Aliexpress, I don't know how well they would work though.

I might have to find out and let you know! A set of letters and a holder should see me good for most of my binding projects, I have leaf and glaire is easy and cheap to get a hold of. I might have to make myself a gilding knife too :D
 
I might have to find out and let you know! A set of letters and a holder should see me good for most of my binding projects, I have leaf and glaire is easy and cheap to get a hold of. I might have to make myself a gilding knife too :D

Let me know how it goes on your end, I'll experiment a bit more and see if I can get hold of a better gold foil.
 
Have you looked at any of the dry transfer gold lettering like these?
http://www.hobbylinc.com/woodland-roman-r-r-letters-gold-1:16-5:16-model-railroad-decal-mg703

you'd have to burnish them pretty good, and might do some pre- and post- pressing to look more authentic, but they might be the gold color you're looking for. You can also overcoat them, but of course test on scrap first.

LOL I swear if they'd have let me I would have had a triple major in college, loved the book making classes!
 
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Thanks for the link, that looks very interesting!

Letraset transfer types was one of the things I did consider. My daughters science-box-book would definitely have benefited from it. I stupidly used "letraset" as a search word, and only got grotesque fonts (sans serifs) , "RR" gives me a much better selection!

Another problem is finding a suitable Roman font. Horizontal book spine letters are normally somewhat laterally compressed. Railway Romans (at least those I now found in gold) typically are broad to be easily red while seated in a train at speed. I'll dig a bit more.

LOL I swear if they'd have let me I would have had a triple major in college, loved the book making classes!

I can imagine! I wish they'd offered book making classes over here. Luckily I ran into the RPF though :)
 
Arrrggghhhh!

I've been up and down the internet trying to find a matte gold foil for toner printer/laminator. The only company I can find offering matte gold foil is "YourBinding.com", which seems to be a very good and very serious business. They even offer free shipping ... if you live in the US. For poor me overseas, they'll charge 80 dollars to ship a roll of foil.

That's about 3 or 4 times the cost of the foil itself. I really just need a 2 or 3 A4 sheets sized bits, but the smallest they have is a 100 ft roll. Anyone in the US looking for matte gold foil and willing to sell me a few feet?
 
Do you think this cheapo set might work?

I do, the trick will getting to the right temperature. Ideally you need the right kind of stove (Google 'hot stamping finishing stove') for doing that, but if you have a good IR thermometer you should be able to use something like a regular cooker to get them up to temperature. The guide temp I was taught was that if you put water on the stamp it should steadily evaporate but not sizzle and boil away, you're looking at around the 60°C (140°F) mark. Pressure and duration are just down to practice.

I was looking at those exact sets (I came to the same conclusion that the only way to do this was the proper way), I don't have time on my current book project (it's being gifted next week) so I've decided not to splurge just yet. Next time I bind a book though...
 
While still being undecided about gilding, I decided to give another type of book a go, this time at the cheaper end of books.

In my previously mentioned dentist waiting room style new office, I have put up a few shelves. I also keep a few tools (we still need to bang in nails) in a cardboard box that leave a bit to be desired visually:

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(Ali kaffe is a Norwegian coffee brand. We drinks lots and lots of coffee at work)

Now, this could do with some faux book spines! Luckily, old science books are often rather plain. From the invention of mass book production in the early 19th century, books were often sold "in boards", so that the (wealthy) patron could have them bound to his or her taste. In science, this tradition continued until the Great War or thereabouts. Cheapscates as most scientists are, a lot of reference works and report series were simply left in boards. Here's a few examples:

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Soooooo, a report series it is then! First: Some bits of left over wood (notice the "test books" at the left margin):

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A quality evening spent with a file and some sand paper later:

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Each faux spine was given a layer of some stiff paper to hide the worst file marks:

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Tomorrow I'll give the marbled paper a go. In multi-year series (as this is supposed to be), the binder would run out of one type of cover paper. Later books would be bound in similar (but different) paper, so that the books would vary over the years.

Verdict so far: Plain sailing, zero costs.
 

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Day II of my science report series:

Marbeld or pull-paste paper isn't that hard to make (YouTube has extensive tutorials on both techniques), but having a nice colour printer at work makes it even easier. I goggeled imaged of marbling, used Photoshop to make them match more or less in colour and printed a few:

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Next up was simply to cover the spines. I aimed for the effect of paper stock changing through the years:

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The idea is that the three thicker books are several years bound together. After three of these multi-year books, another bindery have taken over, binding single year volumes.

Next up is labels. For this style of books, they are usually simple manilla paper labels with black text, printed or even handwritten. In the end, I'd like the books to look a bit like this (well, without the cover of course):

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Now I just need to think of a suitably snotty sounding report series name, and start making labels. Since this kind of binding is typical of the German speaking tradition, I was thinking something along the vein of Quartalweise Beschreprchung der Naturkunde, Nationaluseum Budapest (quarterly review of natural science, national museum of Budapest) or something like that.
 
Label time!

I spent some quality time with the rickety old laptop putting together some fairly period-looking labels. Since some volumes are thicker than others, I had to make a few variants. Here's the labels for the first 6 books:

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A problem with a modern laser printer is that the letters are too perfect. I'll fiddle a bit with them to make them look more like a printed run (uneven ink. some letters not sitting straight etc). I'll cut an A4 sheet from an old manilla envelope to match the style of the books.
 
While waiting for Monday and some quality time with the printer, I've stated another project.

I was down at the local home supplier picking up the usual lot of screws & stuff when I noticed some brownish cardboard packing material in the bin:

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It's about a yard long and each side is roughly two inches wide.

Now, bit's of cardboard are everywhere, but what caught my interest was the surface. It's obviously built up of layers of brownish and slightly translucent paper, giving it some of the same visual qualities as velum (untanned leather). So, I took some home with me to compare with some velum reference material:

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Yes, that thing on top is an actual 17th century velum bound book.

I had originally considered buying a piece of drumskin to do velum spines, but this might do the trick. To get the right curvatures and some ribbing at the head and foot similar to the actual volume, I let the cardboard soak in water and bound it to a suitable cylindrical shape (a shovel handle):

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Now it remains to see if the visual characteristics of the cardboard have survived the soaking. If so, I've basically found a free source of velum spines.
 
Wohooo, it worked!

The cardboard retained it's colour and slight translucence, and the double gutters at the head and foot took!

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The slightly wrinkly "extra" bits is cardboard I teased off from the underside. I plan to use it to make "quarter leather binding". Of course, velum binding is usually full covers (it was the "cheap paperback" of the Renascence), but it will do for my faux book project.

Next up is making a box and adding titles.
 
Update in my "science book" series:

I had a slow day at work today, so I got to spend some quality time with Photoshop and the labels. Here's how they turned out when printed in a sheet cut from an old manilla envelope:

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Cut out the first labels and glued them onto my paper covered spines:

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The full set, and some experiments in distressing:

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I'm quite pleased with how this turned out! Now, I'll need to do some subtle weathering on the spines (tears, dirt).

So far, cost 0
 
Finishing the science report set:

First up, distressing. These books have a tendency to crack their spines longitudinally. Tears are usually confined to the top of the spine. I used some black fat based crayon to simulate accumulated grease from the hand and dirt. Not perfect, but passable:

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To preserve it all I gave it a lick of shellac, and immediately regretted it. It made the labels quite a bit darker and shiny. Note to self: If using shellac, add the labels afterwards. The next day it looked better, but while not obvious from the next picture, the labels were still quite a bit darker:

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Oh well, this was just an experiment anyway. Time to mount them. Just a recap: The cardboard crate with my tools in the office:

før.jpg and heretter.jpg

Tadaaaa - much more sciency!

Verdict:
Cost - practically 0.
Look - workable in a science institution, for a genteel library, not so much
Lessons learned: - I need to stay off the shellac for paper labels.
- Manilla paper (from old envelopes) look really cool
- Printed marbling actually looks very good!
 

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