Hard Cover Books on Demand for Printers

Making Hard Cover Books

Making hard cover books is easy.

Step One – Plan your job! To determine your spine width, first print your book contents. Paper thickness expands as you deposit ink or toner. Take the printed contents, compress it and then measure the spine thickness. Ideally, the spine should be slightly wider than your content width so that it will have a “keyhole” appearance after being bound. As an example, if your book content is ¼” wide, cut the spine width 5/16” to 3/8” wide. Book Production Systems carries an inventory or pre-cut spines in a variety of widths.

Step Two – Produce the cover.

Print your images on a Fastbind tacking sheet.
Use a laminator and laminate with 1.2 mil nylon glossy or matte laminate. Do not use thicker laminate or polyester material; it causes the cover to curl making it difficult to make the hard case.
When laminating, only apply laminate to the outer cover. It’s best to take all of the tension off your roller and allow the laminator to pull the material freely.
For making cloth, velvet, leather or foil covers, cut your material to size, make sure that there is a 1” overlap beyond the chipboard dimension. Place a roll of our double-sided adhesive in the laminator and roll on the adhesive in cold mode.

Step Three - Building the hard case. The Fastbind Casematic can make a cover in less than two minutes.

Turn on the unit with the switch on the back of the unit. Adjust the spine placement tool to the dimension of your spine (i.e. ¼” ½”, etc. Rotate the wheel and adjusted tines to allow access of the printed tacking sheet to the ledge. Your machine is now adjusted and you can go into production. Peel off the liner of your tacking sheet. Place the tacking sheet such that the center of the spine image is aligned with the centerline shown on the unit (the sticky side is up to allow placement of the chip board and spine). Select the spine material that has been fabricated to match the content thickness. Rotate the wheel and tines down to the position which places the center line in the middle of the tines. Place the book spine in-between the tines. Place the front and back cover chipboard pieces on each side of the tines. The sticky adhesive is pressure sensitive, so press down firmly on the spine and chipboard pieces. Rotate the tines away from the assembled tacking sheet, chip boards and spine.

Using either the cutting jig shown above (optional), or scissors, cut 45-degree corners, ¼” from the corner of the chip boards on every corner. Remove the partially assembled cover from the light box.

There is an edge wrapping module (optional) attached to the Casematic. There is also a foot pedal that activates the wrapping of the excess material around the edges of the chip board. Insert each of the two long edges into the edge wrapper and push the foot pedal. The edges will be wrapped. Wrap the two long edges first followed by the short edges.
Now run the cover through a laminator with the heat off or at its lowest possible temperature. Because the tacking sheet is pressure sensitive, this will press out any bubbles or wrinkles. Your cover is done and is ready for binding!

Step Four - Bind the Book

Place a hard cover end paper (also known as a flysheet) on each side of your book contents. Think of these as stickers that will cover up the inside chipboard when the book is opened.
Place the hard cover in the binder. Slip the cover under the spring loaded, hard cover peg. Place your contents on top of the spine. Take care to insure that proper placement of the material in order that he adhesive will be evenly applied, then apply the clamp. Push the handle up to flip the book spine upside down. Run two passes of the glue pot. Immediately following the application of the adhesive, rotate the book to its original orientation and let it sit for 5-7 seconds (This will allow the adhesive to attach the spine to the contents). Then use the clamp with very light pressure to confirm the bind. Remove the book from the machine, and re-insert it, clamp the front cover with the nipping bar to finish. Then lightly clamp the back cover.
Let the book sit for at least 2 minutes and then peel out the backing from the end papers/fly sheets as you close the book cover. You can then open the cover and press out any bubbles with your hands. The inside chipboard is now covered.

Making Hard Cover Books

Making hard cover books is easy.

You now have a completed book!