How do you cut out a book?

Question

Like make a hole in the entire thing like in the "olden days" where they hid stuff in it?

Answer 1

how do I rip books, you ask? with my eyelashes. yes, i'm actually that tough!

i once destroyed a book by cutting the pages like a square. i used my Xacto knife and pushed really hard. it got several pages at once.

the result was a square that almost was even, and wasn't a large enough spot to really hide anything. as well, i think the pages are supposed to be heated together in such a way that it creates a wall for when you lift and move the book

the best way is simply to buy one that was premade for this purpose

Answer 2

I did one of these years ago by hand. Get a really sharp paper cutting blade from a craft store, [I used one with the snap off blades, so if it gets dull you just SNAP to have a sharp edge again] and you can cut maybe 10-12 pages at a time. Get a book thick enough and large enough for what you want to hide inside. A book with smoother paper will cut easier - old encyclopedias are great because they are BIG and have nice paper and usually can be found inexpensively at a used book store or garage sale. Use another book roughly the same thickness, to hold the cover level as you work. Try not to bend the spine of the book as you go along or your cut will be slanted from top to bottom. Leave a few pages at the beginning uncut, and rubber band them to the front cover. Make a template the same size as a page, cut out the shape you want, and trace it onto a page. Put a cutting board or piece of scrap cardboard in about 10 -12 pages. Then carefully cut through the pages. Add those to the rubber band pages at the front, trace the pattern, put the board in 10 more pages and cut. Keep going til you get near the end of the book. It takes a while but it works. Then you might want to glue all the sliced pages together as well as a few at the bottom, or if you put a heavy object in the book it might just slide out. Voila! A book safe for all your goodies.

Answer 3

There are companies that make books for the purpose of hiding things. I oncve tried to carve out the center of the pages of a book. It didn't work. The paper of a book is not rigid enough to withstand a mechanical cutting like a saw or router. The only way I know of would be to cut each page individually. That's a big job.

Answer 4

Here's a site with the instructions you'll need.
http://familycrafts.about/library/projects/booksafe.htm

Answer 5

Perhaps this website will help.

http://www.alpharubicon.com/prepinfo/makingbooksaferh.htm