Today, I'm going to demonstrate making the 10-minute slipcase.
So what is the 10-minute slipcase?
It's a very basic slipcase that is very common on high-quality books.
So here's two commercial examples from my library, of books that came with the basic slipcase, from Castle Hill Press.
My teacher June said that every significant job, if it didn't already have an enclosure, should at least have one
of these basic slipcases.
This is an example of one that I've made with my usual 12 points, or 0.3 millimetre, manila card.
The design is based on one that's been kicking around the Australian bookbinding guilds for the past 20 or 30 years.
This is the design that I'm going to use, and the PDF of this is in the description below.
The height, width, and thickness in the diagram are the actual dimensions plus 1 millimetre.
I'll do this slipcase twice.
This first time will be very sped up and it will just show the major steps.
And the second time through I'll go a bit slower and I'll use that same manila card so that the markings show up
easier and you can see what I'm doing.
But the steps are: to measure the book, to mark up the piece of card stock, to cut out the shape,
to crease the folds, to fold the folds, and then glue it together.
My Patreons will know that I've been an assistant to the book and paper conservator Robin Tait on some book
restoration courses recently.
At the end of the course, Robin showed people how to make this 10-minute slipcase.
To quote Robin, "All bookbinders should have a 10-minute slipcase in their repertoire." As recently as early
2019, June McNicol was still demonstrating this slipcase to the Queensland Bookbinders' Guild.
When it was written up for the newsletter, it mentioned another well-known Brisbane bookbinder, Bill Horton,
demonstrating this in 1997, where it was reported "the 10-minute slipcase that takes 20 minutes." In the Journal of
the New South Wales Bookbinders' Guild, called Morocco Bound, and almost identical design appears in 1989.
And in that article, it says it's a reprint from the Victorian Bookbinders' Guild.
So this design is well-traveled.
And a quick look on the internet, and I also found a design that came from Ascona which is different, but the same, as
the one that's been kicking around Australia.
So I'm just doing the gluing up of this red slipcase.
And as you'll see in a moment, it's going to take me 20 minutes.
So I'm doing the Bill Horton trick.
Looking at the Ascona design, they simplify the process by using double-sided tape instead of adhesive.
If you don't score the fold lines and don't include the measuring and worked a little bit quicker, I guess I might
be able to get it down to 10 minutes.
But the reality is that 10 minutes is a very quick slipcase.
So for this second time through, I'm not going to fast forward quite as quickly, and I'll talk about some of the
individual steps.
For this next demonstration, I'll use an old friend, "A History of Scotland", which was the paperback to hardcover
conversion. The first step is to measure the size of the book, so you want to find the largest dimension in the
height, width, and thickness and then add 1 millimetre to each of those.
Now, if you have a piece of card stock that's wide enough, then you would just take 5 millimetres away from the width,
for the flap that folds into the inside.
If the card stock's not long enough, then whatever's left over, then you can just divide that by 2.
So after you've done the measurements, then the next step is to mark it out.
So it's the thickness of the book at the head and tail and then the height of the book in between.
And then it's the thickness of those flaps, which is the width of the book minus 5, or half of whatever the excess
is. Then the width of the book, then the thickness of the book, and the width of the book again, and then the turn-in
flap. The next
step is cutting out.
Now these turn-in flaps are tapered in slightly.
You can measure a couple of millimetres, or just eyeball it like I am doing here.
And then the little tabs at the head and tail, they have a little wedge taken out on one side
and the tongues at the head and tail are just chopped off about a - well, I just use the thickness of my ruler - and
they'll get trimmed up to match the curve of the book once the slipcase is finished.
The next step I do is score all the fold lines.
Now this is really an optional step, but I think it results in much crisper folds.
But it does add a few minutes to the construction.
Once all the fold lines have been scored.
Then fold at the fold lines.
When it comes time to gluing up, it's most common to have the little tongue at the head and tail at the spine on
the inside.
Now you could put it between the two layers that constitute the head and tail ends, but then you would be able
to see it from the outside.
So I think that's why it's most common to have that on the inside.
And that's, thus that's the first thing that gets glued.
After I glue out these little tongues, I always lift up the side that doesn't have the little wedge cut out, and that
way I can lift it up square and sort of force it into the back of the corner.
After gluing the tongues in place, the outside flaps are glued, and that is all the gluing done.
If you've ever bought a really long bone folder and then afterwards thought, what am I going to do with this?
Here is your chance to use it.
It's perfect for reaching inside one of these slipcases.
So I'm going to bring this one in at 18 minutes, but I did have a couple of disruptions where I didn't stop the
stopwatch, and I did make a mistake on a measurement, so I could have probably got another 3 or 4 minutes off that.
But even still, 10 minutes is a bit of a stretch.
So that's the 10-minute slipcase that takes 20 minutes to make, done for the week.
I hope you've enjoyed the video.
And as always, I really appreciate you hitting the big thumbs up button.
I made a very basic no voiceover extra video for my Patreons this week.
If being one of my Patreons is something that you're interested and you're able to do, that would be greatly
appreciated. And there's a link in the description below to my Patreon site.
If you want to be notified of my future videos, please hit the subscribe button.
And until next time, cheerio.