oooh happy idea

[kumakami]

if I had the stuff to do it (materials, printer, tools, time) I think I would run a compo and the winner gets ten prints of their game as a book made BY ME like this.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... _zdU1gcWww

[Groffa]

That's a brilliant idea.

[Onix]

Instead of the bolts, I would use . Before PODs I used to make my books with them. I got the idea from blueprint spec books when I was a construction estimator.

My brother made a version of this with 1/8 inch plate steel and a big piano hinge for the side that opens. The steel was cut with a torch in a super jagged manner to make it look really knarly. He used it as a very heavy art portfolio.

[madunkieg]

That's a really complex way to make a shitty binding. Despite having hardcover, it's just a "perfect binding" inside with bolts holding the boards in place. Do you really want to know how to bind books? Look at tutorials for creating bindings with ribs on the spine, or almost any fine bookbinding tutorial (youtube is great for this, but there are a lot of little tricks that tutorials leave out). This is not a lost art, but it requires a lot of handiwork and skill and it can't be automated.

I used to work in a bookstore that catalogued books as old as 500+ years (we even had some that predated the printing press, but that was before my time). I even took an introduction to bookbinding course just to find out what to look for and the various tricks used to fake higher quality work. It really opened my eyes to the true value of a properly bound book.

Here's an example of an improperly bound book that was transformed by a bookbinder that gives some hints as to what to look for:


If someone would offer this sort of work on a game, I would be very impressed. I probably couldn't afford it right now, but I hope to be able to afford it eventually.

[bender42]

It would almost be cheaper just to get it published by Lulu or another printing service for such a small print run.

[maledictus]

I used to work on the restoration workshop of an ancient books library, there I learned how to bind books. This is what is known as a "dog bite" biding, it doesn't allow you to completely open your book. As madunkieg, I would recomend to use ribs on the spine instead.

[Onix]

While he was cutting the boards I was thinking that he was making a spine and two covers. Of course a wood backed spine wouldn't work right. But I was thinking that it would be cool to use a wood core to bind a book and then wrap it in leather. At that point I'd want to learn to emboss on leather because it would be way too cool to not put some pattern on the leather.

[kumakami]