Camille Fayseler — Hand bookbinding and | camillefayseler.com
How to fold, count and sew the sections of any page count — the thread to use, the station spacing, and the order that makes the seam last decades.
Start with the arithmetic. One folded sheet carries four pages, so any page count divides by four into sheets: a 160-page block is forty sheets. Those sheets nest into signatures, and the standard groupings for this size are eight signatures of five sheets or four of ten.
The grouping choice is a genuine trade. Signatures of five fold flatter and put less paper under the awl at each station, so the thread seats without tearing; signatures of ten halve the kettle count and the sewing time, but each fold carries twice the paper and the spine swells more per section.
Thread is not a place to improvise. The standard is 18/3 linen, about 0.6–0.7 mm in diameter, waxed with two or three passes through beeswax before the first stitch. A 160-page block consumes roughly 15–20 m, and the full length should be waxed in advance — a join mid-seam leaves a knot inside a fold.
On narrow screens, swipe or scroll the plate sideways.
Supports and stations come next. A block of this weight sews on four linen tapes, or 2–3 mm linen cords, spaced 30–40 mm apart. The kettle stations — the locking points at each end — sit 3–4 mm in from head and tail, and they are marked on every signature, not just the first.
Sew in a fixed order: first signature in at the kettle and out around each tape; second signature back the reverse direction; a kettle stitch locking the two at each end; then repeat. The kettle is the lock — the needle passes behind the stitch of the signature below — and it is what lets the seam survive decades of shelf life. The block takes 10–20 minutes to sew.
Expect the spine to grow. Sewing adds 3–5% to the closed width — ten sheets of 100 gsm paper go from about 3.5 mm to about 3.6 mm — so measure the block for its case only after the last kettle is tied. The board and cloth page on this site works through that allowance, and the comparison page explains when sewing is worth the hours at all.
Further reading