Book #068 - Tabs and Slots

When you fold a piece of paper, or a stack of paper, in half, it's inevitable that at the inside of the fold you have the same paper on facing pages. If you want a book with alternating color pages this is a problem. Here's an experimental design that solves that problem. Note that the small pictures are just there to illustrate the process, they're not the book in the big picture.

Each folded signature (in this case a single sheet) is slit at the fold and a single, unfolded page with a tab (or tabs) at the side is slipped in between. Then you take all the folded/tabbed page bundles, stack them and fasten the tabs together. I stapled this book (you can see the holes where I missed the mark the first time) but you could sew them, I suppose. Then fold the tabs back over the covers, half to the front and half to the back, and glue them down. With some planning you could even have decorative tabs. Or you could glue separate covers on the tabs, or a folded cover. That would be worth a try.

Book #007

Whew. A bit of a nail-biter today. That happens when you make something, decide you don't like it, make something else, don't like it either, go back to #1 and decide it's ok after all so you'd better get on the ball and finish it. Yes, indeed.

I don't know if I can explain the structure of Book #007; it's simple enough, but difficult to describe. You know how you can take two identical shapes cut from paper, slit one halfway up from the bottom and the other halfway down from the top, and then you can slide them together to make a 3 dimensional shape? This book is sort of like that, but half the pages have slots cut in the center of the folded edge, and the others have two notches cut at the ends of the folded edge. Then you roll, ease and wrestle a notched page through the slot in a slotted page and fit the notches into the ends of the slot. Yes, it does work. You keep connecting the pages this way and pretty soon you have a nice interlocking book. See the little contrasting triangle at the corners of some of the pages, along the centerfold? Those are the pages below, peeking through the notches in the page above. The long triangles in the middle of the pages, along the fold, are the slots in the slotted pages.

One of these 365 days I'll make another one out of two colors of paper - it's easier to see that way. But today I made it out of two sheets of heavy paper that had been used to test the alignment on our printer. They had interesting blue patterns that I couldn't throw away...so I made a book. But it needed some dressing up and I wanted to do more so I used an online generator (more of which later) and had it make up some names for magical articles and clothing. Jackpot! Thus was the book of Magic Garments born: the Ornate Coat of Charisma, the Shirt of Fiery Deflection, the Boots of Chaotic Ritual, the Hat of Deadly Dust Zones, Pants of Water Breath, the Crystal Gown of Worldlyness (sic) and the Vest of Alter Aura. Oh, and Vicious Fish Socks, but they were an afterthought.

About the generator: just go here. Expect to spend some time. You've been warned.