We R Memory Keepers, Journal Book Binding Punch Guide Set, Includes Guide, Awl, Curved and Straight Needle, Waxed Thread, Japanese Stitching Template and Storage, for Japanese and Copic Bound Books

This terrific and cost-effective book-binding cradle takes all the guess work out of placing and punching holes for any bookbinding project. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced bookbinding artisan, this is a terrific tool! Your line of stitches will be straight on your spine, and the holes will be even. Using SeaLemon's trick of marking ONLY the holes you need for the project at hand with a wet-erase-able pen means you always know exactly which mark to punch your awl through. It's got 1/4th inch spaced holes in both the cradle section and in the flat 3-column section. The ONLY thing that would make this better is if it was a little bit longer! But you can still do a longer book spine by shifting it down for the second half. It has approx 8.5 inches of punching holes. Compared to other book cradles out there, this is under half the price, and will solve all your book-punching worries: * No holes under your spine onto the surface below * Straight line of spine and book signature hole alignment * A guide secures your paper/s * Perfect Spacing * Supports multiple signatures, too And it COMES with your basic bookbinding needs in a small felt pouch: * straight handled paper awl * curved needle * straight needle * thread - which is better for practice than final good projects. Get some better thread after you get good at this :) * The teeniest, tinyest set of instructions you have ever seen. You'll want to find the PDF and download them. And then you will want to refer to some YouTube tutorials about using it, because a video is worth 1000 diagrams for book binding stitches. Save yourself a bit of time and trouble and put that energy into making more beautiful big and little books! This is two big THUMBS UP from me!

I have watched tutorials, I have seen Paige Taylor Evans make the cutest little mini albums by binding them with colorful embroidery floss and charms. I loved the look but, wasn't willing to cut my chipboard, punch the holes and basically have to make a template for each book I wanted to make, so I gave up. The idea of so much work before it even began to look pretty discouraged me from trying any book binding. I can across this one day and thought I would search for tutorials and perhaps some inspiration. That was the best idea I had ,had in a while. I quickly got excited as YouTubers showed how to videos and shares of the cutest mini albums, books, journals and notebooks using this tool. I gave it a shot and purchased this tool and I'm so happy I did. The instructions are easy to follow and precise but, if you have issues you can always check out YouTube. I love this tool so much, I don't know why I was so scared to try my hand at book bing. My advice to you is get some charms, buttons colorful embroidery thread and a good pair of scissors because, you will want to cut up all your cereal boxes in your home for the chipboard to make your own books. You have been warned, it's really easy and addictive!

This tool is perfect for nerds that like to bookbind fanfictions. Included is the hole punch guide, as well as a tool to actually punch the holes, both a straight needle and curved needle, a small booklet with different types of stitches, and enough beeswax thread to bind 3-6 fanfics (depending on how many pages each fanfic is).

TL;DR: If you want an easy way to bind zines or small booklets without fancy equipment, this set does the job. Great alignment, decent tools, and currently a good price. But don’t expect it to punch thicker stacks or provide detailed instruction (YouTube will help with the latter). Here's the whole enchilada… If you're like me and looking for a simple way to try binding zines, booklets or journals, this punch guide set is the way to go. I looked for quite a while before I ended up choosing this set, and while it's not 100% perfect it will get you pretty darn close, even if you're a beginner. The reason I hesitated before choosing the We R Memory Keepers set was because it was plastic, and because when I initially saw it the price was ~$25 US. That seemed a lot for plastic, and for something that can only handle 8 sheets at a time. When I went looking around at other options, however, I saw the comparative strengths in this one and returned to purchase it. By then, the price had dropped to ~$15 US. That's a very good value for the money and IMO a no-brainer for a beginner or someone wanting to test the waters with binding. Also, I have purchased other We R Memory Keepers products, and have been happy with all. So I expected at minimum this set would be a good place to start. I like that the set offers a way to secure pages for both perfect binding (i.e., down the center of folded sheets) or on the edge, to bind single sheets. While some of the other options I looked at weren't plastic, I realized that those types of punch guide sets wouldn't allow me to see exactly where the gutter (middle) of the sheet should be. So while transparent plastic might be a little more delicate than wood or other type of plastic, that's a trade-off I'm now OK with to be able to see exactly what I'm punching. While the product info says the set can handle 8 sheets at a time, I'd say that depends on the paper you're using. The outside cover for my zine project was printed on card stock; the interior pages were a heavier weight paper with additional collage layers. So I ended up doing the cover separately from the three interior pages. I didn't have trouble getting the holes punched in the same place, but I was careful about using the guide to make sure the holes all aligned. After I finished the birthday zine project, I used the set to punch and perfect bind my vintage sewing machine manual from the 1970s (last 2 photos). It originally had a stapled binding that had long since failed. It was so cool to be able to repair the manual myself, and to have the option to do it creatively. If you look closely at the edge, the manual is a bit chunky where the staples were. This is to do with old paper—not the punch. The awl works fine for punching the holes, BTW. I only had trouble when I tried to force it through the entire stack of sewing machine manual pages. IDK how many sheets that was, except way more than 8. I really like that I can use the same tool set to do perfect binding and Japanese or Coptic stitches. I appreciate the storage pouch that holds the needle, thread and awl. I wish they had made a larger pouch to hold the entire set and keep it all together—I'd be willing to pay more for that. I didn't use the included thread, because I wanted black and I had my own on hand. It was a bit chunky for the Noble binding (second photo), so that part isn't perfectly done. But it looks pretty cool, and I was super happy with it for a first attempt. The included booklet is nearly useless, TBH. It will give you ideas you should then find on YouTube if you want actual instructions. The booklet is super small, and even if it was larger it lacks sufficient detail I wanted as a beginner. This review is nearing epic length, but if you're up for a pointer around a rookie mistake I made, here ya go… In designing the zine shown in my first few photos attached to this review, I'd completely forgotten the way you need to lay out pages that should be side by side and wound up with two four-page sheets that needed to open up with no other pages in the way. If this doesn't make sense, imagine making a booklet from 4-5 sheets of printer paper folded in half. The one that's on the top of the stack will be the only sheet where both halves of the paper appear side by side (see my 4th photo for an example). I realized I could use the flat edge binding guide to secure the additional should-have-been center spread to the inside back cover. That allowed the sheet to open outward so it could be viewed with both halves together. Big bonus that this solution gave me a reason to try the Noble binding stitch :)

The perfect kit for book binding and poking signature holes. Thank goodness they sent waxed thread too because the thread I had was not good enough. I ended up using almost all of this thread on one book. I’d also recommend using a larger hole poker because the one they sent pokes tiny holes.

Great tool to consistently punch holes for binding junk journals.

This set is great for the price,it has helped me on my book binding/scrapbook journey quite a bit! Easy to use, and comes with a few extra items you can utilize.

Damit macht das Basteln spass

Super util.

Les trous ne sont pas symétrique pour un A4 plier (carnets a relié) ou un A5 et un A4 ne rentre pas sur son long côté

I love this, so simple to use and so effective for booklet making. I also use it to punch regular holes for other stitched items such as cards, etc.

Me encanta la calidad del producto, es muy fácil de usar y tiene el tamaño perfecto para lo que la uso