Hello friends. I'm in the process of completing my first bindings because I have ADHD and my queer audacity told me I could do it. So far, mistakes have definitely been made and lessons have probably not been learned, as you can probably see in this picture.

Yeah, I miss measured (okay, okay I rushed and didn't actually verify) and didn't get my holes placed evenly, then four signatures in, I accidently reversed one and decided to say screw it and keep going by making an alternating pattern that, while looking cool, probably isn't the most functional nor does it matter if I want to leather bind it. Also, I didn't research different kinds of stitches, just sort of dove in and said baptism by fire, go.

Next mistake...this bad boy started as 12" x 18" sheets. Signatures are four sheets each. There are 63 signatures in total, for a grand total of 1008 pages if I've done my math correctly. So, yeah this beast is thick. Now I'm trying to figure out, how do I deal with the fact that the binding itself is a lot thicker than the front of the pages where it's not bound. Does anyone have advice for this.

Also, I think I want to actually trim the ends, but I don't have nor can I afford a guillotine that can cut 500 pages and I don't have any other fancy tools like a plough. Any recommendations on how to cost effectively get the block trimmed so it's square?

https://preview.redd.it/oaeg34stlpib1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d22f26190564125aab4dcd0cf12423737ad3bcc0