solobo

Awesome, glad it was helpful! Let me know how it turns out.

looks awesome, thanks for sharing! I like your design a lot.

Thanks! Yes, I need to do an experiment with soft vs hard flour. And yes, butter brushed on the biscuits (with sprinkled salt!) is delish

Awesome, I'd love to hear how it turns out!

I added the file in step 3, but it's not showing up yet - I think it triggered a filter and needs to get approved. I'm also attempting to attach it here.

This one has held up very well - I've carried it around / read it often over the past couple years and still no problems. Carving the spine leather that I used would be hard (I used thin chrome-tanned leather), but you could definitely use some thin veggie tanned leather and do some tooling on it, or use a laser / wood burner to make some designs on it.

Good tip!

Probably strong enough, but not big enough... the bed is only four feet long (already too short for my 6 year old)

If you stuck the case (from step 19) onto a hard cover, then instead of a thin piece of endpaper covering up the edges of the leather case, you'd have a thick cover lying in the spot where the dotted lines are in step 21. This would look pretty funky (imagine the brown endpaper in the picture of page 265 in step 23 as the original book cover). It would also hinge differently... instead of hinging at the end-paper fold, it would hinge at the original book's spine. I tried this on my first attempt, and the glued-on cover tore off very quickly.As far as I know, headbands have pretty much been decorative all along. I think people used to incorporate more cloth into the spine, and maybe that cloth had something like headbands, which later got formalized into decorative headbands? I'm not sure.

looks great, thanks for sharing!

You can do them exactly the same way; the only difference is when you're removing the old covers (steps 1 and 2). Almost all hard-cover books are perfect bound (i.e. with a layer of glue) underneath the covers, just like this one is. You might need to remove the old endpapers (see step 5) as well. Then you'll have a textblock and can start at step 3 to follow this tutorial exactly.

Yes, measurements are shown in inches. I just attached a full scale pdf as well.

Very cool! In school i used a similar technique to fatigue test vibrating aluminim beams, but wrote some code to actively track the resinant frequency (using a sensor and changing the shaker frequency to maximize the vibration amplitude of the beam). I wonder if there's a way to use the microphone the same way (start outputting a guess frequency with the speaker, then listen with the microphone (processing out the speaker frequency so it hears only the response of the wine glass), then hunting with the speaker frequency to try to match. Probably very difficult. What you have is awesome!

Thanks!

Great tips, I'll have to try that. Thanks!

Not at all, please keep sharing, these are great! Are you using a vinyl cutter to make the designs and ironing it on? Looks like the transfer was a little cleaner on this second attempt - did you do things any differently?

That's beautiful! I love the symbols you used too... simple and elegant. Thanks for sharing!

I didn't use a wood burner on this project, but I did use a laser on my first project (link below). I experimented with the laser's power until I got a light scorching on the outside of the leather. It was chrome-tanned and if I recall correctly, it may have smelled bad during the lasering. https://www.instructables.com/id/From-Paperback-to-Leather-Bound/

yum, thanks for sharing!

I don't know of one. I've heard of people adding gluten to a low-carb flour like almond flour - you could give that a try. Let me know if you figure anything out!

Probably the almond flour was what made the difference - since it has no gluten, it's hard for it to form that elastic network of gluten strands which holds the dough together and traps the bubbles formed by the baking powder. I haven't tried it myself, but crumbly / flat biscuits is exactly what I would expect from a no-gluten flour.

It seems like it should. I would probably take off the plastic sleeve on the DVD case first, then try a contact cement or something meant for gluing decorations onto plastic. Please let me know how this turns out if you give it a try!

Actually, I don't know that you'd need to make any changes - maybe an extra rubber band would be in order, but I was pretty pleased with how rugged this turned out. If you wanted to change anything, you could make the main shaft slightly larger (or with a thicker wall, to avoid having to change bearing sizes). I think that's the weakest point. But it wasn't even flexy with me, and I was testing it pretty hard at 5' 10" and close to 200lb.

I really do think a bolt will be the safest for the tree in the end - I had the rope tied over the branch (similar to that strap) and it took less than a year to rub almost all the way through the tree bark.

Ha, of course!

Yes, there should be a bar the pops up on the top right with a heart and an option to "favorite" the instructable. You can look at your favorites any time.

Yes, it works well for air squats.Good luck! Let me know how it turns out!

Thanks!I think it would work, and I've actually been meaning to try exactly that, I just haven't gotten around to it. I did try binding a book in a single piece of stiff 8-oz leather one time, which didn't work - it was just too stiff and the book wouldn't open without tearing off the glue. The book in this instructable was at the other end of the spectrum; all hinge points were thin, very flexible chrome-tanned leather. 4 oz veggie tanned leather is right in the middle, and I've seen journals bound with what looked like just that. If you do decide to go for it, I'd love to see a picture / hear how it turns out!

Those would be some great experiments to try. Thanks for the suggestions!

Thanks!

Thanks, I appreciate that.

Thanks!In all my experiments, I preheated the oven. I'm not sure whether it would make any difference to put them in a cold oven (other than increasing the baking time); that would be a good experiment to try.

Thanks for sharing! Sounds like a fun quest (trying to replicate your mother's biscuits). I definitely want to try your interesting technique of forming balls of dough under running water. Is this just to help with handling the sticky dough? Here are some thoughts / suggestions on the recipe itself:Your standard recipe: 2 cups self rising flour (baking powder is pre-mixed into the flour)1.25 cups buttermilk1/4 cup lardIs very similar to my standard recipe:2 cups flour + 1 T baking powder1 cup liquid1/2 cup fat1 t saltThe differences are mainly that A) you use more liquid (which tends to make biscuits rise less), B) you use less fat (which tends to make biscuits rise more and have less "flakiness" or "layers", and C) you skip the salt (which, of course, makes them les...

Thanks for sharing! Sounds like a fun quest (trying to replicate your mother's biscuits). I definitely want to try your interesting technique of forming balls of dough under running water. Is this just to help with handling the sticky dough? Here are some thoughts / suggestions on the recipe itself:Your standard recipe: 2 cups self rising flour (baking powder is pre-mixed into the flour)1.25 cups buttermilk1/4 cup lardIs very similar to my standard recipe:2 cups flour + 1 T baking powder1 cup liquid1/2 cup fat1 t saltThe differences are mainly that A) you use more liquid (which tends to make biscuits rise less), B) you use less fat (which tends to make biscuits rise more and have less "flakiness" or "layers", and C) you skip the salt (which, of course, makes them less salty).If you really like biscuits to rise a lot, you might try decreasing the amount of liquid you use (try 3/4 cup). Handling the dough will be much different, but in my experiments the biscuits rose much higher when I did this (see step 3). Using a low amount of fat (as you already do) is probably what is helping your biscuits rise as much as they do; you might get even more rise with a drier biscuit. I use less fat and water often when I'm making biscuits and gravy; it gives very tall / fluffy biscuits, but with a blander taste (which is fine when you're slathering the biscuits with gravy). If you're not using salt, you may prefer the milder taste anyway.If you decide to give this a try, let me know how it turns out. And I will let you know what I find out when I try your running water technique.Thanks again!

Interesting. I've used a similar technique for making pizza before. Maybe I'll give this a try next time I make biscuits (although I do love perfectly round ones).

True. See the comment thread with Bautar for some more info on baking soda (needs an acid like cream of tartar or buttermilk) vs baking soda (has a cream of tartar equivalent pre mixed in).

I fixed it; it was from me converting teaspoons to tablespoons incorrectly in my head :)

Interesting, I'd love to do that as an experiment!

No problem, glad you enjoyed it!

For cardboard, an x-acto knife (for detail) or box cutter (for strait cuts) works pretty well. I used a laser cutter for the detail on this one.

Yes, you can do them exactly the same way; the only difference is when you're removing the old covers (steps 1 and 2). Almost all hard-cover books are perfect bound (i.e. with a layer of glue) underneath the covers, just like this one is. You might need to remove the old endpapers (see step 5) as well. Then you'll have a textblock and can start at step 3 to follow this tutorial exactly.

thanks!

You can definitely use tooled leather to create a leather soft cover for a book (even a paperback), as shown in this tutorial. In the other tutorial, you could substitute tooled leather, but it would have to be pretty thin leather (2 or 3 oz, 3/64") to be able to wrap around the cardboard as shown in that tutorial, which means the tooling impressions wouldn't be very deep / look as nice. You could probably do the design after gluing to the cardboard so you could make sure the design was positioned where you want it. Note: if what you really want are stiff tooled leather covers for the book, I'd recommend following this tutorial and using thick leather (8 oz / 1/8" or so) - it ends up being just about as stiff as a hard cover.

I'm not sure what you mean... are you thinking of trying to stiffen the tooled leather using hard covers? I suppose you could, but you'd have to wrap the leather (or something else... maybe the endpapers?) on the inside of the cardboard to cover it up I suppose?

Thanks!

thanks!

thanks!

There are some traditional cloths (binder's buckram is the gold standard), but I've honestly just picked ones I liked for the few cloth-covered case-bound books I've done. Try gluing a piece of the cloth down; as long as the weave isn't so loose that the glue soaks through and looks like a stain on the outside of the fabric, you're probably OK.

Awesome! Yes, I think they would; there's a variety of companies that sell resistance bands to help with pullups that are basically the same thing. I haven't used TRX bands but they look similar. You'll just have to experiment with how you wrap the bands to adjust the resistance.Post a picture of what you made if you get a chance!

Thanks, glad they worked out (and I am also notorious for forgetting the salt).

Thanks!I used 8 oz (1/8"). The cover ended up a little stiff... not as stiff as a hard-back book though. If you hold the middle of the cover down with one hand and lift up on the edge with the other you can bend it about 2" before it feels like it might crease.

You're welcome! Good luck, and post a picture of what you make if you get the chance!

Well I tried regular vegetable oil yesterday; wasn't bad! I imagine coconut oil or olive oil would be similar, but with more taste variation. Here's a blog post and video showing my results:http://travisdanielbow.weebly.com/blog/biscuit-experiment-butter-vs-oil

This was pretty thin, 2 oz probably. This method was a little easier and less time consuming than the tooled leather method, but the tooled leather results were a bit cooler I thought.

See soccer_kates comment... She also did a very nice looking Harry Potter set.

Sounds like an excellent experiment, I'll do it ASAP!

No problem, glad it was useful! Hope you enjoy Thane.

Well I didn't recognize the names so I had to look them up, and then I started reading about the series and it sounds really interesting. I've got The Last Wish on my to-read list now, looking forward to it!To distinguish the covers: one way with thick leather is to tool it (if it's vegetable tanned). I did this in another instructable (link below). But that might not work as well with the leather you have there. One idea would be to brand/burn the leather with a wood-burning tool or soldering iron (never done this myself with leather, but I imagine it would be similar to wood-burning; might be worth a try on a scrap piece). You could also make the bookmarks and headbands different colors, or sew a different button / concho onto the spine of each.https://www.instructables.com/id/Bind-a-...

Well I didn't recognize the names so I had to look them up, and then I started reading about the series and it sounds really interesting. I've got The Last Wish on my to-read list now, looking forward to it!To distinguish the covers: one way with thick leather is to tool it (if it's vegetable tanned). I did this in another instructable (link below). But that might not work as well with the leather you have there. One idea would be to brand/burn the leather with a wood-burning tool or soldering iron (never done this myself with leather, but I imagine it would be similar to wood-burning; might be worth a try on a scrap piece). You could also make the bookmarks and headbands different colors, or sew a different button / concho onto the spine of each.https://www.instructables.com/id/Bind-a-Book-in-To...https://www.tandyleather.com/en/category/conchos

Oooh, nice, I like it! Thanks for posting. That looks like one of the Witcher Saga books, am I right? I'd like to check those out; would you recommend starting with The Last Wish?

thanks!

yum

Yep, I saw the pictures and replied (see comments); I think sanding the veneer with 150 grit should be safe, but if you want to sand off the veneer entirely, I'd go with the lowest grit available (60 or even 40 grit), or better yet, a planer.

No, the sander you have should be fine I think. I think you should be fine starting with 150 grit. Looks like a fun project; let me know how it turns out!

Thanks!My only thought on sanding veneer would be to be careful: you don't want to sand so much that you go all the way through the veneer of course.

Do you have a picture? You'll probably be pretty safe with 150 or 220 grit, but depending on how much finish you have to take off, it might take a while. 60 or 80 grit would be more aggressive, but more risky.

Cool, good luck!

Thanks!

6-8 oz (3/32 - 1/8" thick)

Well I gave the book away so I'm not sure how it is now, but 9 months or so after making it it seemed to be in great shape.