A Sturdy Slipcase

Design Decisions

Choose the cardboard and decorative materials that you

want to use for your slipcase. You will need a material for

the interior lining and for the outside covering.

The board should be at least a mm thick, thicker if you

want to, so that it matches the style of your book. For the

decorative materials you can use all that you also use for

covering books: Paper, (backed) fabric, or thin leather are

common choices.

Preparations

Important preparatory step: Measure your book and write

down the following facts:

the width of your book's spine (since we want to know

how much the case needs to be open, do not measure

across the rounded spine but the distance between the

boards at the spine). In the sketches this will be marked by

a d,

the height of your book - this will be donoted by an h in

the sketches

and the width of the covers - which will be denoted by w.

Preparing The Raw Case

Cut a piece of your lining material, wider than two times

the book's width plus the spine's width and longer than

twice the book's width plus the book's height. In formulas:

(2xd+w) by (2xd+h).

The material's grain should be parallel to the book's spine,

and therefore to the second number.

Glue the lining material to the cardboard, and take care to

match up the grain directions.

Wait for a moment for the glue to set, - you don't have to

let it completely dry, just be sure that the lining won't slip

or ripple while you are working on the other side.

Then turn the board over, and square up one corner of it.

Mark that corner. Also mark the grain direction on this

side and piece of board. From the squared corner there are

two edges, one parallel to the grain direction and one

across grain direction.

In the next step we score the board where we want to fold

it to form the slipcase's spine.

Measure and mark from this edge the width of the book at

three points or more. (Making it more than 2 points makes

keeps mistakes down and the deviation small.) Put your

straightedge through these points and make a shallow cut

through the board. In several passes deepen this cut gra-

dually until you are left with about a mm material uncut,

or about half the board's thickness. After the second pass

you have a small groove in the board - you can then take

the edge away: If you cut carefully the blade will stay in

the groove, and it is easier to feel the cut without the ed-

ge. Make it an even cut at a constant depth through appro-

ximately half the board.

The positioning of the next scoreline requires some decisi-

ons and needs to be carefully considered. To determine

where it should go you have to take the depth of your cut,

and the thickness of your materials into account. And you

have to decide how firm you want the slipcase to hold on

to your book. Fractions of a millimeter can make a diffe-

rence here. Generally the slipcase should let go of the

book inside slowly when tilted, so that the book slips easi-

ly from its case (without having to be pryed from it by the

head or tail) but it should not fall out. In a special case

something else could also be desirable. The cases for my

travel journals for example hold on to the books more

firmly because they are intended to be carried around in a

bag, not for standing on a book shelf. Therefore they have

these strips of leather that help getting the book out of the

slipcase: Generally if you want your slipcase to sit more

tightly around a book, you need to design a way to get the

book out - be creative! Common choices are a ribbon, or to

cut away part of the slipcase to make it easy to get a good

grip on the book.

Keep in mind that at the foreedge of the slipcase the turn-

ins from the outward covering material will fold over the

board; this is also the point where the book itself may be

wider than the inside edge of the book if your book is not

rounded.

The inside width of the case will be the distance between

the two score lines minus twice the thickness of the uncut

material (this will be about half the board's thickness plus

the thickness of your lining material) and minus the bulk

of the turn ins.

Therefore mark for scoring at the distance: width of the

spine + board thickness + lining thickness + covering thick-

ness.

Then score similarly to the first scoreline.

Next measure and mark from your last scoreline the width

of the book, and cut the rest of the board away.

Carefully bend over the board at one of the scorelines.

First turn it to 90 degrees and support it on the inside with

a straightedge to make the edge sharp. Then remove the

edge, and fully fold over the board to full 180 degrees and

let the insides lay against each other. Ideally your cut was

as shallow as possible, but deep enough so that in this acti-

on nothing in the board tears, only bends. Use your bone-

folder to make the bend sharp as you so when folding

paper.

Repeat at the other scoreline.

Then flatten the board again, und turn again to the backsi-

de where you are making the cuts.

We are now going to work through the length of the case,

and begin measuring from the other edge of our initially

squared corner.

First measure and mark from this edge again the book's

width and mark this line with a pencil.

Score this line only between the previous scorelines at the

spine. Then cut free the head piece of the slipcase along

the scored lines.

Measure on the outward pieces the boards thickness, and

score the board there, off the marked line.

The next decision you have to make is how tall your slipca-

se should be. The same reasoning applies as for the width:

You want it close to the book so that it doesn't fall out, but

enough space so that it can easily be taken out of its slipca-

se.

So you want to make the next pencil line at about the

books height plus twice the thickness of the covering ma-

terial, plus the boards thickness, plus twice the lining ma-

terials thickness.

Before scoring the board, first take another measure at

the book's width and cut away the rest of the board.

Now prepare the tail of the slipcase like you did with the

head: Score alonge the pencil line between the older score

lines. Then cut free the tail of the slipcase.

Mark the boards thickness on the sides, and score slightly

off the pencil line.

Bend and pronounce the new score lines like you did befo-

re: Bend the cardboard completely over, carefully suppor-

ting it first on the inside, and then pressing down with the

bonefolder from the outside.

Then push off the cardboard at the outside squares. To do

this, bend them over so that the insides are touching, and

then push it upwards. This way the remaining part of the

board is much thinner. This will be your glue tabs. Do this

on all four corners.

Mark on the remaining board that is still attached to the

case and now thinner half the slipcase's spine's width plus

the thickness of the remaining board plus half the board's

thickness. And cut the rest off. If you close and square up

the case, the tabs should be just touching.

Your board should now look approximate-

ly like mine in the photo to the right.

Good news: We are done with measuring,

cutting and scoring!

Assembling the Case

Now we get the glue out again. I recommend using

straight PVA for the assembly.

Put glue on one edge of both the head and tailpiece and

glue them to one of the sides of the slipcase. This gives so-

mething like a tray. Take care that all the edges line up

neatly and your constructions ends up square.

Then glue the other edges and close the slipcase. Apply

gentle pressure, and wait a little to let the glue set itself.

You don't have to wait until it is completely dry, but be su-

re it does not come apart when you set it down.

(In the photo you see what needs to be done. Obviously

this is a different case than above, though - the tabs are

not yet cut to size.)

Then put glue on the head, and bend over the tabs. Use a

bone folder, to get them to close smoothly, and make sure

everything is square.

Use clamps and let it dry a little before working in the sa-

me way on the other side.

If you miscalculated the length of the tabs, fill in the re-

maining space with the cardboard pieces that you cut

away - it already has the correct thickness.

Covering the Case

You are almost there. All that is left to do is cove-

ring the slipcase.

You need 3 pieces of covering material: A strip

for the spine, and two pieces for the sides.

The spine strip has to be about 3 cm longer than twice the

width of the case plus its height, and has to be wide

enough so that you have a small strip (maybe 5mm) on the

sides.

For the side pieces measure on the case how tall you want

them - this is an aestetical decision depending on how

much of the spine's material you want to show on the si-

des - and make it about 1.5 cm wider than the case.

Glue up the spine strip. Place the slipcase in the middle

and attach the strip by rolling the case over the material.

Rub on.

The material is wider than your slipcase, and you need to

cut some slits into it and cut some corners out to cover the

sides neatly.

First rub down the material gently in the middle of the

edes. Then take care of the corners.

It depends a bit on your covering material, how exactly

you want to do this. Leather corners are formed a little

differently than paper or fabric corners. The following

series of images is intended to explain the general idea.

For your specific situation you may want to find some

specific solutions.

The two important principles are: Cover all of the board,

do not let pieces of it shine through. Do not double the

material inside the slipcase.

You can fill in the sides before covering them. But this is

only really necessary if you used a thick material.

In any case this is the easiest part: Glue up your material,

lay it in place on the side of you slipcase, cut off pieces of

the front corners before turning in if you want to, and

turn in the material first onto the front edge and then into

the case an gently rub on.

Wait for the slipcase to dry completely before you insert

your book.