The AreaCodex, First Attempt, Wooden Boards

Using Wooden Boards: Originally posted 2003 on bookclasp.com

When I first began exploring how to make book clasps, I didn’t really know that much about wood board books so I used whatever wood I had on hand, which happened to be cheap plywood.

Area Codex: First attempts on wood boards

The text block in the example to the left is part of a telephone book which was guillotined to size. It served as a quick and cheap option to use for making practice books in wooden boards to which I could attach clasps. Because I used the telephone book, I christened this book the

The main lesson learned from this experiment was that cheap plywood makes for horrible book boards, so don’t waste time trying to make it work. Some people have had some success with a higher quality plywood, but I still prefer solid hardwoods. Later posts show better examples of wooden board books with clasps.

I did come up with two interesting possibilities for non-traditional clasps which I made by modifying existing hardware parts.

The one on the lower right is made from a picture hanger riveted to a handmade leather cord. A piece of ivory piano key was glued on over the rivets with silicone glue. The clasp on the bottom left was modified from a piece of copper strap, a found item, some type of battery cable, I’ve since learned.

Each strap is riveted onto the back board, comes around, up and over onto the top board to hook over pins, modified from cup hooks which are riveted through the center of the top board and through a little brass plate on the inside to secure them.