Question for Chris Engle: Coptic Sewn?

[lumpley]

Hey Chris!

Place the booklets end up between the boards. Clamp them in. saw acros the spine to make the holes to sew through. Unclamp and sewn. Do a google search for "Coptic sewn" to see how to do it.

(my bold)

All the pictures of Coptic sewn books I can find look like they were drilled, not sawed. Can you say more about how to do it with a saw, or point me to a resource?

Thank you!

-Vincent

[Andrew Morris]

Just a guess here, Vincent, but I think you'd saw at regular intervals if your pages are folded at the spine, whereas you'd need to drill if each page was loose. I couldn't find any examples of it online, either, but it makes sense to me that way.

[MatrixGamer]

Sawing is a quicker way of doing the same thing a hole punch (awl) does.

Your pages are printed, collated and folded into booklets. Put the booklets together in the order they will be in the book. Clamp the assembled book between two boards. Run your saw (coping saw or hack saw I'd say) at a 90 degree angle over the spine. This saws into the clamping boards and the spine of the book. It cuts the holes into the back of the book rather than punches them. You need to make certain that the spines of your booklets are flush to the top of the spine (so you don't have to cut very far down).

This makes all the holes you'll be sewing through even with one another, something that is challenging to do when hand punching holes.

Then you sew the book.

I can't praise coptic sewing enough for durability and beauty. Hand sewing drop kicks smyth sewing (which drop kicks and stomps the hell out of perfect binding). The only draw back is that it takes time to do.  If a person was only planning on selling a 100 books a year, hand sewing is quite viable. I know it lacks that "indie punk" look that I've seen discussed but why make your book look cheap when (with a little sweat equity) you can make something that looks classy?

Good luck with the binding - it's another addictive hobby.

Sincerely Chris Engle
Hamster Press 

[lumpley]

I guess my real question is: if you saw, how come the pages don't lift out? Kind of like a toy train lifting off its tracks?

-Vincent

[lumpley]

Oops, and I should say: thank you, Chris!

-Vincent

[Paul Czege]

I guess my real question is: if you saw, how come the pages don't lift out? Kind of like a toy train lifting off its tracks?

They aren't loose pages like you'd have if you were perfect binding. They're folded signatures. So when you saw it creates a hole in each one at the fold.

Paul

[MatrixGamer]

What Paul said.

Best time make it a visual explanation.

Take a booklet off your shelf. "My life with Master" for instance. Place the booklet between two boards and clamp it. Then saw four notches in the back of the booklet. When the book is removed from the clamps there are now four holes in the back of the book. Take a needle and thread and sew down through one of the outside holes. Go up and down through all the holes and back again to the first hole. Tie off the thread to the dangling line. You've just sewn your booklet. Coptic sewing just sews together a series of booklets. (There is a little more to it than that but not much.) Sawing the holes is faster than punching them.

Interestingly, Smyth sewing doesn't work this way. A smyth sewn book has a needle go down in the booklet where a hook catches it and drags it over to a waiting crochet hook that pulls it up into the second hole. The crochet hook goes down into the hole of the next book so the far side of the stiching is held together by a single string that will unravel in a heart beat if not glued. A strip of white glue prevents this. Coptic sewing is much stronger.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press

[lumpley]

Ha! Duh on me.

I was distracted by the pictures I saw where the thread loops around across the spine, like lashing.

Thanks!

-Vincent

[Paul Czege]

I was distracted by the pictures I saw where the thread loops around across the spine, like lashing.

Like this one? It's gorgeous, isn't it? It looks like all the knotting/braiding is what's holding the signatures together across the spine.

If I were considering this, as it seems you are, I'd be seriously tempted by Non Adhesive Binding - Volume III:  Exposed Spine Sewings, here.

Paul

[Valamir]

Ha! Duh on me.

Don't feel too bad.  It didn't occur to me that one had to open the booklet back up before stitching so I was also like "what the hell good are slots in the back..." :-)

[MatrixGamer]

Glad to be of help. I played around with coptic stiching around 20 years ago for fun. That was before I did game making. As I recall I made some intaglio plates to print the rules of three traditional games (tafl, 9 mens morris, I forget the third) and printed off a few books on my Dad's etching press. This is NOT the way to make books! Still fun and educational.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press