A Glossary of Hand Bookbinding

Terms of the bench, the press and the finishing stove, from awl to yapp edges — a composed reference site: every term a page, every group a grid of cards.

Tools

The tools of the bench: what pierces, folds, cuts, holds and presses.

Materials

What a binding is made of: thread, adhesives, cloth, leather, board.

Paper

Papers and their properties, from grain to deckle.

Structures

Ways a book is put together, from a single pamphlet to laced boards.

• Bradel binding

  A case with a separate spine piece, joined to the boards before covering.

• Case binding

  A text block made separately from its cover and glued in: the modern hardback.

• Concertina

  A single strip folded into pleats, the pages opening like an accordion.

• Coptic binding

  Sections linked to one another with chain stitches, no spine covering.

• Dos-à-dos

  Two books bound back to back, sharing a lower board.

• Double-fan binding

  Adhesive binding in which the leaves are fanned both ways so glue reaches each edge.

• Flat back

  A spine left unrounded, square across.

• Hollow back

  A spine whose covering is attached to a paper tube, not to the sections.

• Laced-in boards

  Boards attached by lacing the sewing cords through them.

• Limp binding

  A binding whose cover is a flexible material with no boards.

• Long stitch

  Sections sewn directly through the cover's spine in long visible stitches.

• Pamphlet stitch

  A single section sewn through its fold with three or five holes.

• Perfect binding

  Single leaves held by adhesive alone along a roughened spine.

• Sewn boards binding

  A structure in which thin boards are sewn in with the sections as the first and last.

• Split-board binding

  Boards made of two layers with the mull and tapes glued between them.

• Stab binding

  Leaves sewn through holes stabbed along the spine edge, in the Japanese manner.

• Tight back

  A spine whose covering is glued directly to the sections.

Techniques

The operations of forwarding: folding, sewing, rounding, covering.

Parts

The anatomy of a bound book, from head to tail and spine to fore-edge.

Formats

Sizes, foldings and the furniture a book is kept in.

Finishing

What decorates and names a finished binding: tooling, edges, lettering.

A demonstration: the craft terms are real, the site is invented. Built by plinth from EDN and Markdown; every page is complete without scripts.