I’d never made a ring binder before, and am quite intrigued by book binding, so this was my baby step in that direction. I used black chrome-tanned Kangaroo leather.
1. Cardboard cut to size
2. Graph paper stabiliser
3. Roo panels cut oversized
6. Mark mechanism holes
Steps:
I started out by cutting card board to size. Nothing special about the card board, it was just the packaging material from a set of Ikea drawers
I pasted graph paper behind the three panels to keep them aligned, then trimmed off the excess
I cut two roo panels 1cm bigger all around
Now it was time to assemble the whole thing. This is the point at which I should probably have stamped my logo, but I completely forgot. Oh well, maybe on the next one.
I glued the front panel to the card boards and smoothed out any air bubbles with a bone folder
I punched through the back of the leather to mark the ring binder holes
With the mechanism holes clearly marked, I glued the inner panel to the card boards, once again smoothing out any air bubbles
Once the glue had set I used the outer holes as a guide to punch all the way through the inner leather
I punched the stitching holes with pricking irons. On this one I used 3mm KL French irons
I stitched with black Vinymo MBT #8 thread. The total thickness was probably about 1-2 mm
To finish off I attached some M3 nuts and bolts to fasten the binder mechanism, and rounded the corners with an corner punch
7. Glue inner panel
10. Stitch around perimeter
11. Attach ring mechanism
11. Round corners