Adam Savage Makes an Old Book From Scratch

Black vintage handmade paper: amzn.to/3tn54FX Adam's Indiana Jones Grail Diary replica: youtube.com/watch?v=sdoO1... Adam Savage Learns How Old Books Were Made! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uauXBgeImFc

There's a YouTube maker channel from Norway called Nerdforge, and Martina regularly makes stunning custom bound books with sword and sorcery styling, elaborate leather covering, using all the classic book binding techniques and tools. When you did the tour of the book binding museum, so many of the tools and techniques were the same as she uses.

Adam: "Every tool is a hammer" Also Adam: stands in a shop surrounded by tools; hits things with his fist.

I was watching a Myth busters episode earlier today where Jamie mentioned that Adam had "for whatever reason, a sword forge." which back then struck me as odd, but as time has told me was totally in keeping with the mentor to millions Adam had become. What an incredible gift it is to have your boundless curiosity matched with an intellectual willing to disseminate and teach, all whilst being humble, funny and engaging. I doubt I'll ever bind a book, but thanks for showing the process, both practical and thought. You're an amazing teacher Adam.

I've always been somewhat obsessed with bookbinding. Even as a kid, I decided just stapling the edges of a bunch of separate sheets of paper didn't look that good, so instead I would sew down the center of them using the most basic fabric sewing stitch. Didn't know about signatures at the time though, so every one of these books was just one massive signature. Which in hindsight is pretty funny. One day in school my teacher asked us to make an educational report based on one of the units we learned in the style of an "X for Dummies" book. And I decided, "screw it, Imma take this opportunity to learn to bind an actual book." The actual report only needed to be about 4 pages long (and indeed, mine was only 4 pages long), but the book itself was about 240 pages long with a ton of filler pages littered throughout. Some of which were misprints of the report itself, because turns out arranging pages into signatures is really easy to screw up when you don't have a program to do it for you and have to do it manually. I used scraps from around the house to make it, including some left over fabrics from a costume I made some years back and some vinyl leather as the cover. When I was done, I had the stupidest grin on my face and couldn't stop cackling to myself for like 10 minutes. One of my favorite bits was doing the headbanding, because it's one of those things you never notice on books, but after learning about them, I see them everywhere and it makes me really feel like I've unlocked some view of the world I hadn't been privy to before. Unfortunately, my teacher only went through the reports after class, so I never got to see her reaction to a stack of papers and then randomly a fully bound book, smack dab in the middle of it, but it makes me laugh whenever I try to imagine it. The best part was when I got the book back and read through it, she had made notes not just on the report, but also on all of the filler pages and all the stupid jokes and secrets I included in them. That's when you know the effort was worth it. By far one of my favorite projects I've ever had to do for school.

I find that the DAS Bookbinding channel explains all the techniques really well, and has very clear demonstrations. He also goes through all the tools and materials, which is something a lot of places just skip past.

2:45 I was at the edge of my seat for the whole solid 30 seconds of Adam just slamming and flailing his arms near that sudden exacto knife.

I bound a lot of books while in art school. The best advice I got for covers was this; Go to a Custom Framer and ask if they have scraps from the mats they use, specifically those with fabric on them. You can PEEL the fabric off, it would basically then be paper backed fabric which can then be use for book covers. Very often, if they aren't already selling the scraps, you then have free book covers. The non-fabric covered mat scraps can also be used for the cover board.

Man I just gotta say it's so cool that Adam is still producing content and unleashing his scientific curiosity. When I heard Mythbusters was ending I felt a deep sense of loss I couldn't identify until much later as being the sadness for future people not having the experience of curiosity led fun science like I had growing up. I know probably no-one will ever read this comment, but I still want to sincerly say thank you to Adam and his team for keeping the joy and enthusiasm for various creative outlets alive.

I think this is the first one of these videos that made me think "I could do that!" I feel inspired to make a book for myself!

I absolutely adore Adam's percussive maintenance of... Basically everything

I believe what Adam was saying is that bookbinding has a low threshold for entry but the threshold for mastery is a different thing altogether. The journey to mastery is very rewarding though and at all the points one may find sufficient enough for one's self the end result can be satisfactory.

Great work. You have inspired me to create a book. The museum I work at just received a donation of printing plates from the 1800's of a German children's book. I have not found a printed copy, so over the next few weeks,(years) I will be trying to print this and now going to make a book like you did.

First, I love when Adam does design related things. It makes me feel like all that Art School I went to actually taught me SOMETHING, lmao. (Cries in student debt) Second, I REAAALLLY appreciate how much action your new (ish) workbench has seen. I remember when he put it together and my main thought was—I can't wait to see that thing get properly worn in.

Great video Adam. Four Keys Book Art is my favorite bookbinding YouTube channel. He's doing a series on getting started in bookbinding with basic tools.

Who else loves making things more than they actually love using the things they make?

If you get a bone folder it makes nice sharp creases. After years of not being able to find the kind of paper I like to draw on in a sketchbook, and the size of sketchbook I like, I started making my own sketchbooks.

I love doing bookbinding projects for personal use or prop making. I play D&D & converted a 2E supplement for Aurora's Emporium into 5E rules. I went all out with it, including color swatches in the back for when characters order custom clothing. One of my players really liked how it looked & asked me to make one for her. To this day, it's probably my favorite bookbinding project.

Mister Adam, this was GREAT fun to watch! Thanks for the inspiration on a HUGE old book! The best book binding videos I have found have been by DAS Bookbinding here on YouTube. He knows his stuff, and is an excellent teacher! Nik the Booksmith also has great tips and techniques on her channel. Some of her creations may be a bit less classic. But solid techniques are solid techniques. One cannnot go wrong with either.

I've been bookbinding in some form since the age of 11 or twelve. Way before I knew what I was doing. And I started legitimately learning the art form maybe ten to fifteen years ago. It's definitely a skill that is easily accessible to start off with, and the learning curve is basically growing from, "that'll do" to, "yeah, that looks like something a professional made." LOL Since everyone in the comments is sharing their favorite bookbinding tutors, I have to shout out Sea Lemon. She pretty mush taught me everything I know, and she explains it in a way that is easy to comprehend, for people who are just getting started out.