Whether you’re diving into the latest murder-mystery, biography, romance novel or piece of classic literature, there’s no denying that Americans love to read.
While technological advances have changed the way that Americans and others around the world absorb knowledge and read books, sometimes there’s nothing better than curling up with a good book in front of the fire on a cold night or lounging in a beach chair with a good read on a summer day.
Most of today’s novels run between 280-320 pages, which is about 75,000 to 110,000 words taking page size, font and spacing into account.
If you’re an avid reader, especially of hardcover books, there’s a chance that maybe some of your older books aren’t in the best of condition. Are some of your favorite books losing pages? Are they falling apart?
If that’s the case, don’t worry. There are many methods you can use to repair your book spine. Whether you use glue, book repair tape or something else, here are two ways to repair your book spine on your favorite books:
Reattaching pages
One option available to repair your book spine is reattaching pages with book binding glue. Hit up your local craft store or hobby shop to find a bottle of binding glue (make sure to get one that’s acid-free).
Remove any loose pages and set those aside and double check to make sure they’re in the right order. The last thing you want is to go through all this work to have books with pages out of order.
For the attaching:
- Open your book and apply glue to the inside of the book’s spine. Once you’ve done that use a popsicle stick or something flat to spread the glue evenly.
- Once your pages are in order, take are to line up the top and the bottom so the pages are even with the spine. Press the edge of your group of pages to the spine so they are attached evenly.
- Once you’re done that, close the book and keep it closed with a rubber band. This will keep the pages in place as the binding glue dries. Another option you have is to stack heavier books on top of the one you’re repairing.
- It’s important to let the book dry for at least a day. You can then open the book and gently flip through it to see if the pages have attached. If not, you may have to repeat the entire process.
Hinge Repair
If you have to repair a broken hinge on a book, remove it entirely so you’ve got a clean block of pages to work with.
For the repair:
- Cut a piece of book binder tape (you can find this in craft stores too) that’s the length as the block of pages.
- Apply adhesive to one side of the book binding tape (use this instead of adhesive label tape) and make sure it’s applied evenly.
- Attach the tape to your page block in two tabs. One goes on the first page of the page block and the other goes on the spine of the block. Make sure the tape sticks.
- Let the adhesive dry for at least a few hours.
- Put wax paper on top of the page block and in the book spine. When attaching it, lay it on top of the tape that should already be attached, but not glued yet.
- Put adhesive on the other two tabs and bring the cover’s edge up to fit on the seam of the binder tape.
- Press the book spine against of the tabs and once you’ve made sure it’s holding firm, attach the last of your tabs to the cover. Once you close the book, use rubber bands to keep it closed and make sure all your tabs are attached.
- Let everything dry and then remove the waxed paper and rubber hands. The book should be good as new.
These are just two ways to repair your book spine and for book binding repair. Take time and care to follow the above processes carefully. With a little TLC, you can make your oldest books look good as new. On online search of “how to repair a book spine,” can also give you some other alternatives for book repair.