Adhesive & Glue for Bookbinding

DIY Guide: Hardcover Made Easy

In this guide we show you how easy it can be to bind your own hardcover book. With our detailed step-by-step instructions including a video we want to inspire more people to discover the world of bookbinding.

Leather-paring with Schärffix

The original: Schärffix® is a device to pare leather products, especially for leather book cases. A sharp blade and a suitable paring roll thin the leather on the inside which makes the leather easier to turn-in or hinge. It is small and handy is supplied in a case including spare blades, different paring rollers and tools. We supply plenty of tools for leather treatment, such as paring knives, paring stone, leather scissors, leather dyes and leather care products.

Edge-gilding with gold leaf

Besides edge-gilding with our edge-gilding roller and foil we also offer tools and consumables for gilding with real gold leaf such as gilding knives, agate burnishers, gold leaf, binding agent, gilder's tip and gilding cushion.

Edge-gilding with edge-gilding roll

How to gild edges in just 5 steps - A step-by-step guide to edge gilding. Book-edge finishing was historically used for very high-value books - in the past, every valuable and special book had an edge covered in gold, chalk, graphite or dye. The gilded edge was the highest quality method and was done with real gold leaf (see also our tutorial with gold leaf). Nowadays, edge gilding is used very little and has a very special effect as a result.

Manual gilding with gilding tools

For gilding, edge gilding and decoration of books and leather products you need the right tools and materials. In the following video, we show a selection of our products you can use for this purpose.

Make book cases with the casemaking square

If you are going to create your own book case, you may use our case-making squares. These help you to easily position boards and spine on the cover sheet so that the case will be straight and square.

Attach book corners with PräPremo

It is not always easy to apply metal book corners. To make this easier, we have invented a little press, which comes in two versions: manual PräPremo and PräPremo Pro with air pressure. In this guide, we show how to use them and how easy they make it to fix book corners to a book cover or finished book.

Marbling of paper

Marble is a limestone that has a special colour structure. When marbling paper, you want to achieve such colour structures or marble effects and capture them on paper. For DIY enthusiasts, this is also possible at home and not many tools are required. The special thing about marbling paper is that the marble effect looks different every time, each piece of paper being unique. The good thing is, anyone with a little patience and enjoyment can actually learn how to marble paper.

Adhesive / Glue Guide

Discover our comprehensive guide to adhesives for bookbinding. Find out which adhesive is suitable for which material and application, from dispersion to hotmelt.