Supplies

Things You Might Need

Text paper›
Used for: Printing your book onto. For sketchbooks, watercolor books, photo books, etc. this would be different types of paper.
Nice option: Cream-colored text-weight paper of appropriate grain (short grain for folio and octavo; long grain for quarto and sextodecimo)
Common alternative: White text-weight copy paper, no regard for grain direction.
Necessary? Pretty much, yeah.

Bone Folder›
Used for: Crisply folded signatures, clean corners on covers, scoring measurement/cut lines on materials
Nice option: Folder made from bone, horn, teflon
Common alternative: The same shape but made of plastic.
Budget substitute: Old credit card, plastic spoon, your own thumbnail.
Necessary? No, but nice to have and not expensive.

Thread›
Used for: Sewing together signatures into a whole book.
Nice option: Linen long-staple bookbinding thread, pre-waxed or waxed by the bookbinder
Common alternative: Strong sewing thread, like upholstery thread or quiliting thread.
Necessary? For sewn bindings, yes. There are glued, no-sew bindings like double-fan and perfect binding that need no thread.

Book board›
Used for: Supporting the textblock and giving rigidity and structure to hardcovers.
Nice option: Museum board, Davey board, greenboard.
Common alternative: Bristol board, chip board
Budget substitute: cereal-box or similar carton cardboard laminiated(glued) together to desired thickness. Avoid corrugated.
Necessary? Limp covers and paperbacks don't require them, but hardcovers do.

Glue›
Used for: Attatching covering material to bookboard, lining the spine of sewn bindings, tipping in plates and endpapers.
Nice option: Acid-free/archival bookbinding PVA
Common alternative: White school glue or other PVA
Necessary? Not for all binding styles. Secret Belgian, stab binding, and coptic stitch require no glue, unless you wish to attach decorative material to covers. For bindings that need adhesive, PVA may be interchangeable with paste for most applications.

Paste›
Used for: Gluing down endpapers, filling bookcloth, other gluing tasks, see above. Paste lasts longer refrigerated, as it may mold unless dry.
Nice option: Wheatstarch paste, usually homemade, or Methylcellulose
Common alternative: Any other starch such as cornstarch, rice starch, laundry starch, etc.
Necessary? See above.

Needles›
Used for: Sewing signatures into the textblock.
Nice option: Bookbinding needles, straight or curved.
Common alternative: Heavy sewing needles, straight or curved, such as a tapestry needle or darning needle.
Necessary? For sewn books, yes. Curved needles may be necessary for secret belgian bindings or similar techniques, but straight will do for most applications.

Knife and Mat›
Used for: Cutting text paper, decorative cover material, boards, and so on. Cutting mat keeps blade from blunting so fast and protects your work area.
Nice option: Scalpel
Common alternative: Craft knife, box cutter, X-acto blade, etc.
Necessary? Generally, yes. Scissors will do in a pinch, but a knife works better for the type and frequency of cutting. Precut boards, papers, and other supplies will mean cutting less.

Decorative Paper›
Used for: Endpapers, covers
Nice option: Marbled paper, Paste papers, Chiyogami
Common alternative: Scrapbooking paper, colored paper
Budget substitute: Regular paper decorated at home.
Necessary? No, undecorated paper would be fine.

Bookcloth›
Used for: Covering board, certain styles of endpaper hinges
Nice option: Leather, Fancy commercial bookcloth
Common alternative: Quilting cotton or other fabric filled with paste and/or backed with paper. Bookcloth is not hard to DIY
Budget substitute: Fabric is easy to thrift or cannibalize from garments.
Necessary? Technically, no, but the bookcloth makes much stronger and longer lasting hinges than paper for hardcover books. You might use bookcloth only on the spine and hinge to save material. Stab binding and coptic books don't need that structure like cased books, so paper would be fine there.

Sandpaper›
Used for: Smoothing bookblock edges to remove sawtooth or to prepare for gilding, foiling, or inking. Sometimes to round board corners for specific binding styles.
Nice option: Various sandpapers of increasing grit fine-ness. A larger grit number indicates more and smaller particles. High grit sanding is needed for gilding, but low to medium grit are fine for coloring. Sanding is much more comfortable with a sanding block or other way to hold the paper.
Necessary? No, unless gilding edges.

Beeswax›
Used for: Conditioning thread to prevent tangling, Sometimes as a protecting layer over inked or gilt elements or hand-decorated papers.
Nice option: Not nicer, but more expensive: sewing store beeswax, health store beeswax. From the sewing store it might be sold with a little plastic case to help run your thread through it. Some folks like that, but you can draw thread over a cake of wax without the case just as well.
Budget substitute: Beeswax from your local apiery is usually priced better, and is likely equivalent or superior quality.
Necessary? No, but nice to have, and a little goes a long way, so cost is low in the long term.

Mull›
Used for: Glueing over the spine of a sewn book, to make it both strong and flexible, and in some cases, to preserve a rounded shape. Usually a paper layer is added after the mull. This process, and the materials used during it, may both be referred to as 'lining'.
Nice option: Commercial starched linen mull. May be labelled regionally as mull, crash, scrim, or super.
Common alternative: Any open weave fabric like linen, cotton, tarlatan, cheesecloth, or gauze.
Budget substitute: Offcuts, misprints.
Necessary? Maybe not. A solely paper lining is not as flexible or long-lasting as mull, but it will do in a pinch for smaller books. Glueless sewn bindings, such as coptic, and no-sew bindings are generally not lined with mull or anything else.

Awl›
Used for: Punching holes for sewing in signatures and sometimes boards.
Nice option: Sturdy Awl with handle. Thin shank is best for paper, rather than a wide tapered leather awl.
Budget substitute: Heavy needle, the size of or (better) a size larger than the one you plan to sew with. You can make a handle with foam or cork for better ergonomics.
Necessary? For sewn bindings, yes. A small hand saw or knife may be used instead to create sewing holes in signatures.

Scissors›
Used for: Snipping thread, cornering bookcloth, trimming mull and paper, general cutting
Nice option: Seperate paper and fabric shears, regularly sharpened, and thread snips.
Common alternative: Scissors.
Necessary? Most cutting can be done with a knife, but scissors are better with thread and fabrics.

Ruler›
Used for: Marking and cutting straight lines at the correct length.
Nice option: Non-slip metal ruler with graduations in millimeters or fractions of an inch
Common alternative: Gridded, transparent acrylic quilting rule
Budget substitute: School ruler or unruled straight edge.
Necessary? Yes. A straight edge is important for square corners and proportional books. Metal rather than plastic will better withstand damage from your knife.

Square, 90°›
Used for: Lining up perpendicular cuts and other placements
Nice option: Metal triangle square, with a 90° and two 45°s.
Common alternative: Plastic triangle or T-square
Necessary? No. Squaring by careful measurement is time-consuming, but possible.

Glue Brush›
Used for: Spreading even coats of glue or paste. Sometimes wetting down paper and board with water to control warping.
Nice option: Natural bristle brush, rinsed thouroughly every time. Silicone brushes and spreaders can have glue dried on and peeled off again later, which is better for your drains.
Common alternative: Regular craft paintbrushes, usually nylon or plastic.
Budget substitute: You could use your fingers, but often you'll have to touch surfaces right after which you would prefer to have glue-free.
Necessary? Yes, for bindings using glue.

Japanese Tissue, Kozo paper›
Used for: Spine lining, backing bookcloth, repairing small tears in paper
Nice option: Long staple mulberry or rice paper, grain along the book spine
Budget substitute: lightweight copy paper, packing paper
Necessary? Sometimes

Linen Tapes›
Used for: Improving structure in the spine of a sewn book, especially a rounded one. Tapes are held between signatures and passes of thread, and are glued to the boards under the endpapers
Nice option: Commercially sold bookbinding tapes made from linen, hemp, ramie, etc.
Common alternative: Tyvek(construction house wrap), fabric, sewing tapes
Budget substitute: Bookcloth offcuts, grosgrain ribbon
Necessary? No, some styles of binding are incompatible with tapes, and bindings that may use them can often go without, excepting very heavy texts

Ribbon›
Used for: Built-in bookmark attatched to the spine
Nice option: Some people like charms on the ends
Necessary? No

Clamps›
Used for: Applying pressure to the book between boards during processes such as sanding/edge treatment, gluing and lining the spine, or as a substitute for a press
Nice option: Hardware F-clamps, C-clamps, spring clamps, handscrew clamps
Necessary? For most glued or cased books, yes clamps or a press would be needed.

Masking or Washi Tape›
Used for: Securing cover pieces during Secret Belgian bindings, dryfitting boards or case to textblock, temporarily holding unknotted thread tails
Necessary? No

Pencil›
Used for: Marking cut lines and glue borders. Taking notes or labeling parts such as 'front/back' or 'waste sheet'
Common alternative: Mechanical or wood pencil
Necessary? No

Scrap Board›
Used for: Protecting the book from being dented by clamps or crushing shoulders in a press
Common alternative: Designated stiff, strong board in most used sizes
Budget substitute: Bookboard offcuts, found cardboard as from packaging
Necessary? No

Waste Sheets›
Used for: Paper lining for protecting work surface and equipment from glue, ink, and other mess. Protecting the book from mess. Applying glue in crisp lines to the edge of the surface.
Nice option: Would not recommend nice paper for this.
Common alternative: Junk mail, offcuts, misprints, blank filler paper
Necessary? No, but a simple habit that reduces clean-up and undesirable marks on the finished book.

Press›
Used for: Applying even, prolonged pressure to the book. Lots of different types for different processes.
Nice option: Purpose made lying, finishing, or nipping press
Common alternative: Homemade press of tightenable boards
Budget substitute: Weights
Necessary? Often helpful, but occasionally not required

Guillotine›
Used for: Cutting thick stacks of paper all at once
Nice option: Professional grade Guillotine able to cut inches of paper in one go
Common alternative: Office-style swing arm guillotine able to cut 5 to 30 sheets at a time
Budget substitute: Local print shops and office stores may offer cutting services at an affordable rate.
Necessary? No

Hammer›
Used for: Rounding and backing spines
Nice option: Bookbinders hammer, cobbler's hammer
Common alternative:
Balpine hammer, mallet Budget substitute: Metal water bottle, bare hand, scrap wood
Necessary? No, many books need not be rounded

Backing Boards›
Used for: Bracing the textblock and providing an angle to bend the shoulder to while backing rounded spines
Nice option: Purpose-made backing boards, may have locating pins and metal edges to withstand hammering
Budget substitute: Plain board with a smooth chamfer on the edge. Edge may need re-planed if dented by backing hammer.
Necessary? No, many types of books are not backed

Blotting Paper›
Used for: Absorbing moisture, as from glue, to prevent it affecting nearby book pages
Nice option: Stationery blotters
Budget substitute: Misprints, offcuts, paper napkins
Necessary? No

Plough›
Used for: Trimming uneven edges off the textblock from folding and cutting
Nice option: Bookbinding Plough and press
Common alternative: Chisel and press
Necessary? No, untrimmed edges or sawtooth is fine, or even desirable to some readers. Trimmed edges are only required if foiling, gilding, or coloring edges.

Chisel›
Used for: Trimming uneven edges off the textblock from folding and cutting
Nice option: Chisel with bevel only on one side, honed every few passes over the paper
Common alternative:
Necessary? No, untrimmed edges or sawtooth is fine, or even desirable to some readers. Trimmed edges are only required if foiling, gilding, or coloring edges.

Typesetting Software›
Used for: Arranging text and images into desired layout for the book
Nice option: Software specifically made for typesetting, such as Adobe InDesign, Scribus, or Affinity Publisher
Common alternative: Word Processing software such as Microsoft Word
Budget substitute: Open source/freeware such as LibreOffice or Google Docs
Necessary? No, typeset books can be purchased or recieved gratis from others.

Imposing Program›
Used for: Putting pages on the right order for printing folded signatures
Nice option: Software such as , or web-based programs like Bookbinder JS
Common alternative: Microsoft Word has a built-in 'bookfold' option
Budget substitute: Bookbinder JS is free
Necessary? If you've typeset your own book, probably. You may have recieved an already-imposed file from somebody else. Stab-binding and Double Fan/Perfect binding does not need an imposed book; the pages can be printed in standard order.

Glass Pane›
Used for: Drying medium-fill bookcloth
Nice option: Shatter-proof glass with a dull or rounded edge for safety
Common alternative: Picture frame glass, refrigerator shelf, wall mirror, glass-topped table
Budget substitute: Firm smooth surface covered in Poly sheet, taped or clipped taught
Necessary? No, some methods of making bookcloth do not require a drying surface

Plastic Sheeting›
Used for: Preventing moisture, as from glue, from absorbing into other pages of the book
Nice option:
Common alternative:
Budget substitute: Salvaged packaging, kitchen bags such as ziploc
Necessary? No, though pages may warp or wrinkle without a moisture barrier

Sewing Frame›
Used for: Mantaining vertical tension on sewing supports such as tapes or cords while sewing signatures together
Nice option:
Common alternative:
Budget substitute:
Necessary? No, for tapes and most modern styles. Probably yes on cords or other historic bindings.