Sweet Vernal Zephyr

Guess what I did over the weekend?
Made my SONY pocket ereader a Hard Cover!
Wanna know how? Then scroll down!
Disclaimer: This post is long winded and photo heavy. You've been warned.

• Pick up a hardcover at a second hand shop.


• Size appropriately to your ereader.


• Remove all pages with a sharp blade.


• Be careful not to damage the outer binding but still remove ALL paper.

Optional Interior Spine Decoration
This will leave the center of the inner cover rough looking with excess glue and paper.
You can chose to place decorative paper over this eyesore at this point.
If you pad your finished piece, the only points this decorative paper will be visible is where the zipper tucks into the spine.

• Lay your stripped hardcover open on the table.


• Draw some lines.


• These will help you glue the zipper in the same spot on either side.


• Specific inches are not important BUT straightness/consistency IS.

My lines were roughly:
Horizontal *shown in purple:
1" from the top & 1" from the bottom

Vertical *shown in blue:
4.25" from the left & 6" from the left

Time to start experimenting with the zipper.
I used packing tape and push pins to play with the zipper placement.
Hopefully my instructions will help you not to draw blood during this customizing process.

• You want your zipper on the outside. It will be very difficult to unzip if the little tab is inside with your ereader.


• Give your zipper some slack.


• Keep it zipped.


• Tape around the edges of one side of your HC.


• Not too tight to the very edge. Stay on the paper (about 1/2"). *See Pic


• How does it look? Are your corners neat like mine? *See Pic


• Try it. The push pins will help to keep them in place for now.


• Do you have a nice bit of slack at the beginning and the end of the zipper, kinda flopping around in the spine? Good.


• Does your ereader fit inside the closed zipper with breathing room?


• You are going to need room to glue the edges of the zipper down as well as room for padding.


• IF your zipper simply doesn't have enough fabric on either side of the tracks, glue or sew some in.


• Seriously. You don't want it too tight.


• Once you think you have it all worked out transfer your lines to your zipper. *See pic


• Make sure you draw your line all the way across your zipper to the other side.


• You should have 4 lines on your zipper now.

• Unzip your zipper. (Not THAT one!)


• Do you have 8 pencil lines now? No?!


• If not, just zip your zipper back up and make sure those pencil lines cross over the zipper tracks. Ok. Onward.


• Unzip your zipper.
• Match the first line on the inside of your HC with the first line on your zipper.

Remember, you want to access the zipper from the outside, so the tab should be face down.
While glueing remember to stay about 1/2" from the outside edge of the HC. *See pic
We are going to ignore the corners for now.

• Glue just the very edge of your zipper from the first line to about 1" from the corner.


• Dry.


• Match up your second line.


• This should cause some nice bunching at the corner. This is all well and good, just manhandle it until it cooperates. A push pin is helpful here sometimes too.


• Glue just the very edge of your zipper from the second line to the third line, about 1" from the corner.


• Dry.


• Match up your fourth line.


• By now you should know the drill. If not, please reference the above steps.


• Dry.


• Repeat above steps on the opposite side of your HC with the opposite side of the zipper.


• No twisting should occur.

• Flip both tails of your zipper outside of the spine.


• Close your HC and give it a whirl.


• Be gentle. Does it work? Cool!


• Now lets tighten up that zipper.

• To close up the corners, dap some glue under the corner of the zipper fabric and coax it into a nice crease.


• Try it without the glue first to get the hang of it. *See pic


• Follow through with all 8 corners


• You will be left with the head and the tail of the zipper to secure.

• The head should be glued ONLY across the bottom.


• Secure the head strongly


• You want resistance or you will get awkward unzipping.


• Glue the tail at a right angle along the spine only about a 1/2" or so.


• This creates a little cubby hole for the zipper tab to rest while closed.


• The remainder of the tail can be tucked tighter into the spine keeping in mind ease of folding.

• Play with your newly zipped HC.


• Make sure it feels right, zips smooth, works easy.


• Put your ereader or something of equal width inside.


• Keep in mind the space needed for padding.


• Making adjustments is easiest at this point.

Templates

• Still got those pages you cut out?


• Make a template to fit inside your zipper. *See Pic


• Cut the corners off to accommodate the bunching of the zipper.


• This template should be bigger than your ereader.

Padding

• Cut 2 templates out of foam.

If you want to get fancy and layer the foam to cradle your ereader, well then go for it.
But it is more work.
Just remember that you don't want the the cradle to strangle your ereader.

• Adjust your padding to your preference.


• Layout your fabric.


• Be generous and cut out enough fabric to cover and overlap each template. *See Pic

Fabric Covering
Now we get to play with the spray glue! Despite local youth's idealistic claims to possible heights of Zen, this should be done outside or in a very well ventilated area.

• Follow instructions on spray glue.


• Usually they involve placing your foam pads on a solid surface.


• Spray.


• Waiting for tackiness.


• Gently lay the fabric over the pad


• Working from the center out, gentle pressure will adhere the fabric to the contours of your padding.

Final Construction

• Pick a pad to be Lefty and Righty.


• Glue down all edges to the back of the pad EXCEPT the right of Lefty and the left of Righty. These two pieces of fabric will overlap on the spine when we glue in our pads.


• Glue in Righty on the right (You could start with Lefty, but I'm right handed).


• Spread the extra fabric on the left side over the spine and glue in place


• Not too tight to the head of the zipper. That needs wiggle room.

Lefty.
I folded over the edges of the flap on the right at an angle and folded in the edge of the seam so the cut edge was underneath.
If you would also like to do these things, do them BEFORE you glue Lefty down.
It is much easier. Trust me.

• Glue Lefty down along with the overlapping right hand flap of material.

This should finish your HardCover Ebook! Enjoy!

Need more or bigger pictures?