Laser Cut Wooden Book Sleeve

I am part of a household that LOVES books and has a bookshelf or two in almost every room. Many came from a local used book store or Amazon, but a special few are gifts from dear friends, childhood treasures, and gorgeous "they don't make 'em like that anymore" older volumes. These sleeves are a way to protect and honor some of those special books.

A special book

1/8" plywood or other material, sanded (definitely), & with a clear finish (optional, but I almost always do this)

Painter's tape or paper transfer tape (optional, but makes for a cleaner image)

Formula 409 spray cleaner (optional, to clean up any wood finish that vaporized/condensed during cutting/engraving)

Satin-finish polyurethane (optional)

100 grit sandpaper (optional, for cleaning up edges)

Wood glue

Paper towels

Tools

Ruler with markings down to the millimeter or 1/16"

Digital calipers (optional)

Laser cutter/engraver

Lightburn, or other software for communicating with your laser cutter

Mini spatula, or other tool, to get wood glue in the finger joints

Rubber bands

Measure the book’s dimensions. I recommend using a digital calipers if you have one to measure the depth. Take a few different readings up and down the side opposite the spine and use the largest (I was surprised to find that the bottom tends to be slightly narrower than the top).

 Add 1 mm to each dimension so the book doesn’t get stuck in the sleeve.

The dimensions are oddly labeled. That’s to make the next step (getting the box plans) more straightforward.

Go to https://en.makercase.com/#/basicbox to make the patterns for the 5 sides of your sleeve. Fill in the boxes as indicated in the image above.

Before continuing, check to make sure the shape of the box matches the shape of your book and the open side will fit the spine of your book.

Click Download Box Plans (just below Finger Size slider, just out of reach for a single screen grab :-) which will open a download window. Click Download SVG and you will get a file box.svg wherever your downloads go.

Open Lightburn. File-Import the box.svg file that you just downloaded.

Change the words (“back”, “front”, etc.) into T1 or T2 layers. (In Lightburn, T1 & T2 layers are comments that the laser ignores during cutting… you don’t want the words “back” etc. cut out of your box!)

Assuming you want to engrave words/images on at least some of the exterior faces, you’ll need to identify the pieces and orientation. If you entered Width, Height, and Depth as described earlier, the labels above should be right.

There's a LOT of ways to create a cover. I went pretty literal this time, but you could use an entirely different image (photo, drawing), include cutouts, embellish with paint, etc.

Get a good, clear, well-lit scan of the book's cover. Because my book cover was mostly black, I inverted the colors in Adobe Illustrator and saved the file as a pdf.

Import the pdf into Lightburn.

Since the cover was two-color, I decided to create a vector object:

Go to the Tools pull-down menu and select Trace Image

Adjust Cutoff & Threshold until you have a trace that captures the outlines of the details you want. If there are a lot of tiny noise/spots captured, you may want to change the Ignore less than value up to 3 or 4.

Click Ok to create the trace/outline. Move the trace off of the original image.

If there are any flaws in the trace you want to have a go at fixing, UNgroup the trace, zoom in, and delete noise/extra spots. You can also use the Node Editor on the left side menu to clean up the shapes of any individual objects.

When you're happy, highlight the cover and Group the individual objects back into the complete cover.

You could also keep the cover as an image and engrave it that way... there are plenty of Lightburn tutorials that can help you do that. (There are also lots of tutorials that can help you learn the details of how to make a good trace and edit the nodes.)

Resize your cover image to fit the front of the box. Rotate it if necessary (use the Arrange pull-down menu) and center it on your box cover.

I wanted to put the title on the spine. Due to the highly detailed lettering on the cover, I figured it wouldn't translate well to the 1.5 cm usable width of the spine. To do any custom text, go to an online font generator (such as https://www.fontspace.com/) and search for a font you like. Type (the title) into the Your own text box. Take a screen shot and import it into Lightburn (depending on the length, you may have to do it in chunks). Trace the image as above, scale it, and center it on the spine piece of the box.

Now's the time to get a piece of scrap wood (same as you're planning to use) or map out a spot on the piece you're going to be using that isn't needed for the sleeve itself. You'll want do a few tests so the final cut goes smoothly.

CUTS: The only lines you'll want to cut all the way through the wood are the box outlines (the red layer). Test cut a little rectangle (1cm x 2cm) and make sure the cut is clean, but not overdone. (I usually start with an underestimate for my machine and increase power and/or decrease speed until I find a minimum clean cut.)

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The design can be outlined only, filled only, or outlined and filled. For the cover, I decided to use just the fill. For the title on the spine, I did an outline AND a fill to make it stand out. The outline and fill are separate layers. Make sure the line that you use for the outline is lower power/faster cut than you used for cutting out the pieces so you don't end up with holes in the spine.

FILLS & OUTLINES:

Make a copy of the cover and/or spine designs. Make a 1" x 1" square in Lightburn. Place the square over a portion of the copy with a lot of interesting design in it that you want to make sure looks good. Use the Select tool to select both the square and the copy of your design. Then select Boolean Intersection from the left-hand menu to get a 1" square sample of the cover. Do a test run of that square. Adjust Speed/Power settings until it looks good.

If you had darkened areas around your designs in Step 5 after you tweaked your settings, you may want to cover your wood with paper transfer tape or painter's tape before engraving/cutting your sleeve pieces. Doing so will help protect the wood surface from darkening.

Cut/engrave the pieces you designed using the settings you settled on in Step 5.

If you have darkened areas on the surface of your sleeve (not the cut edges), you may try cleaning it off with paper towels sprayed with Formula 409. The sooner you do this after cutting, the better it will clean up.

If you want to lighten the cut edges of your box, place a piece of 100 grit sandpaper face up on a flat surface and rub the cut edges against it. Don't worry about the dark edges inside the fingers, they won't be visible once the sleeve is finished.

If desired, cover the outer surfaces with a light layer of satin or matte finish polyurethane to seal the engraved surfaces. Try not to get the finish on the cut edges inside the fingers.

Assemble the sleeve (friction should do a pretty good job of holding it together briefly). Find a short piece of wood about as thick as your book and slide it inside the sleeve along the top. Put rubber bands around it. Pull off the top side of the sleeve as shown in first picture.

With the mini-spatula, put a light coat of glue on just the inside bottoms of the fingers of the front and back sides (you can see the glue in the first picture). Next put a light coat of glue on just the inside bottoms of the fingers of the top side as shown in the second picture. Press the top piece into place. Use a damp paper towel to remove all the glue that oozes out.

Repeat for bottom of sleeve.

Let dry for about 30 minutes.

Repeat for spine.

Check inside edges for glue that has oozed in. Remove excess. It doesn't have to be perfect, but if there's a lot it might make it difficult to put the book in/get it out, or damage the edges of the cover.

Let the sleeve dry for at least 24 hours before putting your book inside... you do not want to end this project with your favorite book glued inside its protective sleeve.

I hope you were inspired by this Instructable to make a special cover for one of your favorite books... or for one of your favorite people's favorite books!