I made some photos this morning when I made the slipcase for another travel journal. I plan to write up a tutorial for making these sturdy slipcases. It will be put up in the downloads and tutorials section once it is finished – you can see the tab at the top of the page.
Here are some of the photos with a much abbreviated explanation. The tutorial in its written form will contain more details and all the measures.
I usually only mark the width at several point, put on the guide and cut. No pencil line in a first step – this only makes the cut less precise.
The last vertical cut is through the whole board. Take take to make sure both sides of the case have equal width so that the spine will come out square.
The head and tail sections are more complicated to cut. This time I put down a pencil line the width of the book from the top (the headpiece is as long as the book is wide). Then between the vertical cuts, I cut half way through the board at the pencil line. Then on the sides I mark the board’s thickness and then do my cut there, off the pencil line. You can see this step in the picture. This is because the tabs are going to lay over the headpiece on the outside, and to have the head square and flat, the side have to be just a little taller than the spine.
I made a series of pictures of how I do the corners, but they are all completely out of focus, sorry.
I don’t fill in the sides, but you have to fill the front edge, otherwise the covering paper will tear.
This is let to dry for some hours, then the last piece of decoration is added – a piece of leather for easier retrieval of the book from the case, with a bead attached to its end. – Picture of the finished case with book will follow tomorrow.
I should try some time to cut the board half way, I always cut out all the pieces and glue them together again but this seems much simpler 🙂 I like the paper too!
I am happy that you apparently like the construction 🙂
It is not really easier, though: For one you have to keep the depth steady, so that the edge won’t become wonky and it requires some training to really cut a the right depth so that it holds together well but also bends well enough. Also the calculations for the width of your case is effected by how deep you cut: on the inside it will be smaller than your marking on the outside not by the board’s thickness, but by the amount of board that is left uncut.
But if you do all this correctly you are rewarded by a much sturdier case than if the pieces would be disconnected.
Somehow I have again and again difficulties seeing this page correctly. Maybe it has too many images for the software to handle, or my server is having difficulties at this time. I still hope that it’s only me. If not so, please apologize the inconvenience, and just wait for the printout version that should be there soon.