Building a Fake Rounded Spine for a Box

Couple of weeks ago I have shared with you my experience with soft weights. I needed them during construction of false rounded spines for a box project. Today I would like to share my thoughts on making those false spines.

By initial impulse, I thought to carve wooden pieces to form rounded spines. However, the boxes had to be 13 cm high (customer changed the order to 7 cm high boxes later), and these false spines would have been too heavy. At least I think they would.

The other option was to round a light board or a heavy paper with forming tool like those I am selling at my Etsy store.

I do not see any problem making the grooves wide enough with my router to accommodate for the needed box height. However, with any lightweight cardboard I would definitely need to reinforce the curved spine somehow.

That is why my final decision was to build a special structure and to form the curved spine around it. I have started with cutting several rounded ribs. To mark the curve on a template I have just used a plate. All the following pieces were made with that template.

Next step was to fix all ribs on a guide. Now I had a frame to set the outside of the fake curved spine on.

The only problem was to evenly apply the weight on the moisturized cardboard. That is when my new soft weight came to be useful!

Voila! The last steps were to glue the curved cardboard to the frame, and to fix the whole structure on the side of the box.

Here is the finished box with fake raised bands:

Please share your experience with fake rounded spines below =)

Additional Resources

• Soft Weights for Bookbinding
• Quick and Dirty Box Making Jig
• Top 10 Box Making Tutorials on the Internet

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