Inside is a 3-ring binder, which i ripped out of a $2 Wal-Mart folder and mounted in with binding posts from the hardware store. The strap is engraved proofgrade leather with a couple of button holes which slip over the end of a binding post in the cover.
I forgot to unite all my shapes in the living hinge before i cut it, so where i had copied and pasted the pattern to fill out the spine, the laser revisited a couple of overlap spots and scorched them pretty good, but they cleaned up okay, and my wife worked some Boos Mystery Oil wood conditioner for butchers’ blocks into the hinge, and it still came out nice and supple.
It was cut from 1/4" maple ply from the hardware store, and the knots and filler spots were a headache, especially in the kerf hinge. My wife stained it with some nice grey Varathane stain we had been using around the house. I used the hell out of the Pass-Through slot, and I learned a lot (which i’ll post a bit of process stuff later).
That’s where the Pass-Through came in the most handy. To make it out of one big sheet of plywood, i had to cut the cover edges each in their own pass (because i didn’t have a table saw blade toothy enough to give me a clean finished edge), and then cut the spine in its own pass with the ends poking out of the Pass-Through, just being super careful to make sure everything was squared up in the machine. It was tricky, but it worked out pretty much like I had hoped.
It’s all in the stain. A light sanding and rub down, and then hit with the grey Varathane and some wood conditioner. The knotty striated finish is just part of the maple ply. It sometimes didn’t play so nice with the laser, but it did make for a nice finished surface.
The gray stain is lovely.