Book binding with tooled leather

[4knights]

Howdy, folks. I am looking to re-bind some books: replace old covers with tilled leather covers. I see lots of info on thin leathers (1-2 oz) either as a soft cover or turning it into a hardback book using billboards.

Has anyone had success in using tooled leather (4-5 oz)?any advise is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[PastorBob]

One of the first ones I did was an old Bible.  I used 5/6 oz. leather for it. I did some tooling on it as well.  It is somewhere between a soft and hard cover.  

[chuck123wapati]

14 hours ago, 4knights said:

Howdy, folks. I am looking to re-bind some books: replace old covers with tilled leather covers. I see lots of info on thin leathers (1-2 oz) either as a soft cover or turning it into a hardback book using billboards.

Has anyone had success in using tooled leather (4-5 oz)?any advise is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

You don't need thick leather for books, but you can use whatever you want to. I've made a few sketch books, bible covers, and vow books for weddings. There is a lot of info on the forum, i would search bible covers, book covers, vow books and such. you will also want to get info on bookbinding in general. Good Luck!!!!

[BlackDragon]

I'm currently doing some book rebinds. My plan is to rebind and sell a few books from time to time.

 

Generally books are rebound in 2oz leather and good quality binders boards for hardcover books. Going thicker than that makes it difficult to fold over the edges, going thinner means the leather will wear out faster.

On my bench at the moment I'm rebinding a soft cover Bible. I'm going to use poster board and 2oz veg tan. You can probably do 5oz you'll just have to mitigate the curling of the leather after tooling.

   

[Darren8306]

I have a dictionary in my shop that I was going to try 'one day'. So far, my attempts have seemed a bit pedestrian. That Hobbit book looks awesome! Maybe I'll revisit that notion, and take some of the advice offered to @4knights

Cool beans!

[Samalan]

I made a bible cover once out of some black leather I got from a book binding place, beautiful leather, then I did a saddle tan lace around the outside edge, holes cut straight along the edge, then put a nice twist in it so it looks the same inside and out, looks kind of like a diamond shape. The job came out beautifully, but I'll tell ya I felt all sorts of self-conscious about it. Just me, but no lace would have been just fine; I remember thinking God's words don't need to be jazzed up. A funny thing is, I didn't think of that until it was all done. That cover is no longer on that book. LOL