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Kreutterbuch 1527

The book itself was called a Herbarius (though this is bullcrap, as there weren’t any actual physical plants in it!) and was 378 pages long. It was originally printed in 1527. Oh yeah, and it’s entirely printed in ye olde German, if that’s not going to pop your witches socks off nothing will. Maz happens to read German as she’s haunted so this was the best of the best. In German the title is Kreutterbuch.

Before and After

First off I downloaded the pdf from Bayerische StaatsBibliothek (wtf does that even mean!?) and smashed it with some real photoshop skillz. This meant going though every page and re aligning it as it had been scanned by a complete amateur, and then cleaning up all the bits of crap that had leaked out onto the page. All the colour had to be removed as the old pages were like my grandma’s clothes.

Signatures!

Once I had a clean pdf to work with I bought some thick paper, the kind that’s like kitchen roll and could be used to wipe up poop/juice stains in an emergency and printed that mother out. I would say at this point it’s magic rating had already risen to about a 3 or even 4. When the book’s sewn together it’s done so in ‘signatures’ which are little groups of pages you sew in together at the same time so it doesn’t take forever. This means you have to be careful to print them out in an order that allows this. Once you’ve printed out all of the pages you then have to get down to some serious folding, I used a bone folder to crease the pages as it adds to the spookyness, also my mum doesn’t let me touch things with my fingers after that incident. Holding the pages together you then use a little saw on the spine edge to add holes at regular intervals to make the sewing less balls.

When you’ve got yourself a phat stack of signatures all in the right order because you were careful not to fuck it up. You can lay them down on your sewing press. This doesn’t press anything and is another lie from the peons of the past. Get some string and dangle it down from the top bar through the hole at the bottom and secure it (You’re supposed to use little brass keys for this but I didn’t have any so I just tied them on). You can then raise the bar to make it nice and tight but don’t try to play it like a guitar or you’ll be disappointed. With a needle and thread that’s been primed with bees wax start sewing the signatures to the taught string. Try not to stab yourself in the thumb too many times with the needle as it’s lame. If you want to try increasing the magic levels some more you can chant stuff while you’re doing this, like the lyrics to ICP songs or even stuff you made up yourself.

Sewing Press

Plough

You’ll notice at this point that the book has rough uneven edges and some of them may not even open as they’ve been folded over to make the signatures (depending on how you printed them). This makes your book look budget so next you’ll want to put it in your cutting press, this is actually a press this time. The rough edges from one side of the book should be sticking out the top and then you take your plough with it’s sweet ass blade on and start shaving the pages down. It’s a bit like rowing a boat but there’s no water and your dads not shouting at you for having retard arms. Once you’ve done the three rough edges you’ll be amazed by how smooth they come out and just want to keep it touching them. It’s okay to do this no one else has to know about it. If however you’re busted for some crime some day and the FBI start swabbing all your stuff and then want to know why those pages have so much DNA worked into them. You’re gonna want to have a pretty good story ready, that’s all I’m saying.

Next you’re going to want to put some covers on. This will upgrade it from a softback book for pussies, to a hardback book for real bad asses. You’re meant to use oak but I decided to go for mdf as no one’s going to see inside the fucking covers. Cut two of these a bit bigger that the pages and drill some holes in them to allow you to thread the string holding the pages together though. By now that magic rating will be getting quite high, you might need to put on some gloves. If you’re wearing a pointy hat make sure it’s pointing towards an open window to allow the excess magic to escape easily. When books are taken off the shelf people generally stick their finger on the top of the spine and pull, because they’re ass holes. This is going to put extra strain here so you need to add a spine protector. This can be a genteelly woven piece of cotton over a leather strip like something a gentleman might give to his hoe, or a folded over bit of leather you’ve glued on. Next you’ll want a big piece of leather you’ve cut so that it can be folded around both covers and the spine. Stretch this round so it’s tight and glue it down (I also used duct tape). Then you’ve just gotta glue down the first and last pages to the inside of the covers. This is also a brilliant opportunity to write in loads of secret shit that no ones ever going to get the change to read so be imaginative.

Covers