There are few hobbies or skills out there that combine the feeling of the white collar knowledge with the blue collar skills in the way that bookbinding does. Not only does this hobby or trade allow you to work with books (sometimes very old books if you’re repairing), but bookbinding also forces you to become skilled with your hands in order to work the stitching or binding as needed.

Some people first get into bookbinding to repair old books that have damaged spines. Others start from scratch because they want to put something original together. Whatever the reason or the way, there are many ways for people to start out with bookbinding.

Another way of getting into bookbinding is to ignore practicing repair work and to start a new project from scratch after buying the materials you would need. Many people will self publish and then hand bind their own books, like a family history. Another common example of bookbinding includes spiral or plastic coil bookbinding, which will help to put together reports and other similar publications.

If you want to go back in history, the first type of bookbinding was Coptic bookbinding. This was named after the Coptic Christians in Egypt as far back as the 2nd century. This was done by taking sections of parchment, making small folds on each page, and stitching together through the folds. This method of bookbinding was used for nearly a full millennium.

Following Coptic bookbinding eventually was long stitch bookbinding, a method that is often still used by bookbinders today. Long stitch bookbinding isn’t an exact process as there are more than one method that fall under this general style. The most notable part of this style is that the stitching goes through a slotted cover, which minimizes (if not eliminates) the need for glue.

Spiral bookbinding, also known as plastic coil bookbinding, is definitely one of the most common methods of bookbinding today. This method of bookbinding is most often employed to put together large office reports or local homemade cookbooks or other similar books.

There are many types of bookbinding, and different people may find different methods preferable. Do a little research, give it a try, and you might find that bookbinding is just the hobby you’ve been looking for!

If you want to learn more about book binding, please have a look at this page covering a wide range of topics, including book binding instruction.

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