Bookbinding - Making a Corner Jig

Cutting and folding corners when bookbinding is straightforward enough, but you can buy corners jigs to help cut the covering material in exactly the correct position. Rather than buy these, it is really easy to make them. Here's how . . .

[@ernestobarrera2927]

Simple and useful jig for those of us who don't dare to do it by eye!

i made myself something similar years ago, but I used a different proportion to measure the gap, it s about the thickness of the board plus double the thickness of the material, and you get flush miters every time with no overlap. As I am now a full time proffesional binder, I had a handuman mill them out of aluminum, and they are superb! And cheap! And I tried to make one myself, it s quite easy. A jeweler s say, some filing, and there you go! Great video! Thank you!

[@utubepunk]

Do you sell your aluminum jigs?

[@SaveTheButterflies]

Beautiful! Easy to understand and simple! I wish I'd found this video months ago!

[@bessiephillips6913]

Thank you so much for saving me over $10.00!

[@bridiedrain3722]

Thank you so much for this tutorial i cant wait to make a few. The plastic ones are quite expensive.

[@lisa_lorenz4622]

Great tool! I will share this with our students, they're always struggling with corners :)

[@bookbindingtips]

That's great Lisa! Hope it helps!

[@BilliesCraftRoom]

Great idea, thanks for sharing. Little tip, if you use different sizes of boards, mark on the jigs, what thickness of board they are for, so you know which one to grab, as you use them. Im gonna try this and use off cuts from board at the time to measure the distance needed for the jig, rather than trying to measure it, as small measurements are hard to see.

[@spikeboston1237]

Exactly like the jigs I have my students make!!

[@taylors726]

Exactly what I needed. Thank you so much!

[@bevbloomfield3404]

Thanks for the great instruction.

[@dominik1023]

This is so helpful! thank you so much!

[@BilliesCraftRoom]

Great tutorial thanks.

[@tongadi3625]

Thank you ♥️

[@mechsistah2395]

That's a great shortcut. Learning the measurements is something I'm working on and am very grateful any help I find... thank you!

[@nneedler]

Very helpful video. I really can make this jig. By the way what red cloth did you use in this video?

[@bookbindingtips]

Hi - the cloth I used was a random piece of paper-backed book cloth from my box of offcuts, so I couldn't tell you exactly what it was I'm afraid. I would probably have bought it originally from Ratchfords in the UK however.

[@Wushu17]

It took me a day or two to build enough confidence to move forward with the corners. I'm working with 2 mil boards and did exactly as you demonstrated, yet my flaps still overlap each other. Is this normal? Initially, I noticed there was going to be a significant about amount of overlapping so I trimmed my faux leather fabric down to 2 mil instead of 3 mil. It reduced the overlapping, however there's still overlapping. Hopefully that 1 mil of trimmed fabric did not render my corners inferior. The corners required some burnishing and could've been better tbh.

[@bookbindingtips]

Hi - sorry I have only just seen your message! Yes, this method is only really suitable for thinner materials like cloth and paper. Leather and other thicker materials do bring extra problems - you may like to take a look at my video on one method how to make neat leather corners.

[@kmnk]

Very useful tool. I am planning to use 1,2 mm leather to cover up my book, because i want to make figure carving on the leather. Do you think your tool would work on it ? How many mm of gap should i leave? Thank you.

[@bookbindingtips]

I would normally thin the leather considerably at the corner otherwise you are going to get a heavy bump where it overlaps. I suggest practicing first with a small piece of the leather and some scrap board first to get a feel for what works.

[@kmnk]

@@bookbindingtips Good idea, thanks.

[@alispaper]

Hi Glen! Thank you for your video, I usually glue all the cover than I put my board on, than I cut with scissors the corners and not always are perfect. Do you usually glue the board or the fabric? TIA

[@bookbindingtips]

Fopr me, that varies actually, but I increasingly glue the board when using bookcloth now. It depends on the covering material really.

[@utubepunk]

500th Like! 🎉🥳

[@chiria6930]

Great little jig, thank you for showing us how easy it is to do. I did not know about the different widths of board but it makes sense now that you explained it so well. Guess what I am making today to use in my scrapbooking projects and I will show it to my craft class once we are out of lockdown. Thanks so much 🙂🇦🇺

[@thefineletterco.7199]

Brilliant! I shall make one immediately, thank you!

[@bookbindingtips]

You're welcome!

[@marilyn1228]

This is terrific, thank you!!!

[@bookbindingtips]

You're welcome!