Bookbinding Tips: The Simple Secret to Perfect Page Gilding 

Just found bookbinding RU-vid a week ago and my goodness you are a great creator. Love the special effects too. I was watching a video yesterday of someone comparing Schuyler binding to Cambridge and then you upload this. Quite timely. Thank you!

Can you please make a video on all the books you have done till date. I love when you show some of the books for the sake of examples and I wonder what else have you made.

Yes, you’re back!! Your videos got me into bookbinding recently, and I’ve loved my journey so far. Keep up the good work mate, you don’t know half how much we appreciate it!🫶🏻

Hi Austin! I just found your channel and I like it very much. You are doing a great job! I have two questions - what vinyl cutter do you use for your projects? And in what software do you design your cutouts? greetings from Poland

😳 wow I had no idea this was something I could do at home! Also wondering if I could sand a text block instead of getting a guillotine…

I keep getting wrinkles that won’t come out and a weird extra reflective section and applying inconsistently. I have my iron set to the wool setting (on mine it’s 6) I’m wondering it’s because the iron is too hot (when it’s lower the quill foil just slides) Any tips on how to fix this? Also if I go over the same spot too many times the foil starts to peel back from the pages and not go on at all

Rebound my first book last weekend. Learned this lesson the hard way. Thanks for sharing! Your tutorials are amazing!!!

Okay i need to know. Your sanding thing, can you regulate the speed? Because i got myself one after hours of sanding by hand and im scared of the speed :D i do have a test book where i test Things out before moving to the actual piece, but im still scared 😅

your bookbinding videos are super helpful! I'm going to give them all a rewatch when I try to make my own in the future!

Thank you for your inspiring videos. I am having the worst time with this gilding and I am appalled to see how easy it look in the video. Could you help me with this please? My vinyl mostly doesn't stick except on limited spots. I tried different pressures and temperature on my iron with consistent horrible results. Can it be the foil quality, or is it completely a sanding problem? I see your amazon storefront propose 4 different foils, I'm not sure which one is best. I'm using "We R Memory Keepers Foil Quill".

Hi, thank you for this video! But I'd like to ask, do you stop with the 400 sand paper or do you sand up to even higher grids?

Hi! I was wondering (I’m sure you’ve already said this somewhere and I’m not too sure if you use a Cricut machine) but I’m really wanting to get into the cover designing aspect of bookbinding and am looking at getting a Cricut machine. I was wondering if you could tell me if you get your HTV from somewhere else (hopefully less expensive!)? I want lots of colours to experiment with but that is expensive aha. EDIT: Nevermind! I knew you would have put it somewhere! Went through the comments and found you use Siser HTV! I have loved your videos, they bring such satisfaction and are really enjoyable! I hope you make more! (It can be just satisfying and educational to watch you make the books, because I imagine big videos like these would take a heap of time!) anyway, sending lots of encouragement! 😊

Can you do something similar to bible pages with under-colors? I am on a quest to re-gild bibles after I add artistic colors underneath?

Big Fan of these leather binding videos! It got me into binding books. Where do you buy your leather though? I have real trouble finding

Loving your videos. Question: is it possible to turn a glued binding into a sewed binding when making a customized hardcover?

Who's that wizard in the shelf? 1:15

Glad to see your back. I've recently becomes obsessed with your videos and am slowly gathering the things I need to start my bookbinding journey. You are the obly RU-vidr that has made it look straightforward, while also showing common mistakes and owning them. Thank you!

This is amazing !!! Thank you so much for always sharing the very best tips !!!!❤

Ah I'm really happy to see a new video from you! They're always so fun and very informative. Thank you

Hello, I have been inspired by you and your videos to attempt book binding myself. I have thoroughly enjoyed every one of them. I am practicing on some old book from my garage, so no big loss if I mess it up, but one issue I'm having is I'm getting what looks like scratches all in the gilding. So I'm not getting a mirror look. I feel like I'm pushing out the air bubbles as you have shown. What else could this be? I do have a picture I could send in. Something you said here was it's never better than your sanding job. Could this be from sanding. Like the scratches you get from sanding across the grain? Thank you and keep up the solid work!

omg, i had this with an old book when i first started bookbinding and never figured out what it was! I was too cowardly to keep going, but next time I will!

I tried do page gilding a few days ago and had problems with the foil not sticking. While I sanded I used coarse, medium and fine sandpaper as that was all that was available. The edges were smooth but not reflective and I thought that it would be fine. The foil ended up not sticking properly, and after ironing on about four layers, it did stick but it was very patchy. Next time, I should try to use a sandpaper with finer grit than the one I have and see it that helps. Thank you for this video, I'm excited to see how my books turn out!

Thank you for making these videos! I share your love for books-the feel, the smell, and the joy of flipping through the pages. It’s fascinating how much the quality of bookbinding can impact our reading experience. I remember encountering a hardcover book with uneven pages that made flipping through it feel odd, and another with gold gilding that wasn’t uniform. It’s especially frustrating when expensive textbooks, like the $200 softcover for a computer programming class, are poorly bound with just glue, leading to pages falling out with minimal use, making it impossible to resell. I think it would be interesting to review the bookbinding quality of various books, particularly the poorly bound ones, so viewers like me can make informed decisions about future purchases. While I might not take up bookbinding myself (though the double fan technique is tempting and easy), being aware of the binding quality can help prevent regrets when considering of a adding a book into a personal collection.

But what the Horse do...?

Hey! It's been ages.

another fantastic video! I'm having the exact problem you mentioned. However, I did sand my edges to a perfect sheen and still have sticking problems. One thing I noticed when doing my gold letter embossing...it was counter-intuitive, but when I lowered the heat and eased up on the pressure, I got the foil to stick better. Could the same thing be happening with the edges? Is the effect of the iron being too hot that the foil doesn't stick as well? Also, can I over-work the foil? Your other videos have been wonderful and every other aspect of my books are worthy of Easton Press. Just still struggling with the page gilding...

thank you for sharing your learning with us! i tried my first gilding job last week… and immediately sanded it off. evidently i need to be more patient.

Thank you! I'll have that in mind for my next project

So good! thank you for the information. keep up the good work.

Ah! You're back love this tip! I'd of done the exact same thing and just stopped seeing the spots and also learned that if you sand down a rock enough it gets darker, I didn't know that, so that's my fun fact of the day!

So thankful to have found your channel!

Truly ingenius!

I'm so excited to try this in the future! Thanks so much for the tips