Retromags Forum: Retromags > Guide > Debinding a Magazine

Debinding Guide

Debinding is the pocess of removing the spine of a magazine that has been perfect bound (see any current game magazine, or EGM for most of the ‘90s). Debinding a magazine offers you some pros and cons:

Pros

• It's faster to scan.
• It's easier to scan.
• It allows you to scan more of the magazine.
• It allows you to scan each page flat instead of having it rise up and become blurry near the spine.

Cons

• The magazine becomes worthless after debinding.
• The pages can get out of order if you are not careful.

So let's look at the Pros first. When you debind a magazine, you can generally scan it easier/faster because you do not have to push down on the spine to get the page as flat as possible, which produces a fuller scan. When a magazine is placed on a flatbed scanner, its pages rise up near the. This pulls the image away from the scanner and results in some blurring. When you scan a magazine without debinding it, you will generally lose about 1/4 of an inch of the page. While this doesn't sound like a lot, most video game magazines have artwork or screenshots that span across two or more pages. When these images are scanned, they won't match up as nicely when viewing the magazine in digital format. It is also easier to get a straight scan with a debound issue since you can line up an edge of the page to an edge of the scanning bed.

Now let's look at the Cons of debinding. The most obvious one is that when you debind the magazine, that issue loses all of its value to those who collect them. The option of debinding is best exercised by someone who plans to trash his or her magazines anyway. Debinding is a perfect solution for someone who is tight on space and is looking to get rid of his or her collection: scan them into digital format and then throw away the physical copies. The other Con of debinding a magazine is that many video game magazines do not print page numbers on all the pages. This doesn't seem like a big deal until you actually debind a magazine and the pages get out of order. Generally speaking, pages that have advertisements on them don't carry a page number. You would think this wouldn't be a problem since each page has 2 sides, and surely one of those sides must be numbered? Well, you can't count on that. A lot of video game magazines have pages that aren't numbered on either side. This doesn't become a problem until you knock the pages off your desk, or a pesky cat/child comes by and decides to knock them off for you. If you are accident-prone, or live with accident-pone people/creatures, you can do the following (though it will add time to the overall process): before debinding an issue, flip through it and write down any pages that have no page numbers on either side. So if you are about to debind a 200 page Nintendo Power. You should have something like this:

• Page 54 = Mario 3 Ad
• Page 55 = Megaman 2 Ad
• Page 109 = Spider Man Ad
• Page 110 = Classified Corner
• etc

Writing down any pages that don't have page numbers on either side may sound tedious, but when they get out of order you can put them back in order in a matter of minutes.

Tools of the Trade

The tools you will need to debind a magazine are as follows...

• A desk or table
• Box Cutter
• Ruler (preferably metal)
• Magazines
• Something for under the magazine, such as a Plastic Cutting Board, or a piece of very thick card stock
• Optional Binder Clips

The first thing you will need is a sturdy surface to cut the magazines on. I cut all my magazines at my computer desk, near my scanner so that they are never moved more than a few inches. Now, you don't want to cut the magazine directly on your desk or table, so you need something between the magazine and your desk. I currently use a lager piece of thick cardstock that you get when you get a bunch of 11x14 pictures printed, simply because I have them on hand. Eventually I will buy a plastic cutting board, or steal my wife's.

The ruler I use is an all metal ruler. I would stay clear of plastic rulers and if you are going to get a wooden ruler, I would suggest one with a metal edge, so that the blade doesn't cut away the wood.

Speaking of blade, a simple box cutter will do. Be sure to check the sharpness of the blade after debinding several magazines. Using a dull blade can cause the pages to tear instead of cut near the ends.

You may also want to buy some binder clips; this helps if you are debinding multiple magazines and want to keep each issue held together until you get around to scanning them.

Technique

So now you have the magazine, box cutter, ruler and a sturdy surface. You also remembered to flip through the magazine and write down the numbers of the pages with no printed numbers on either side. So now, armed with all that information…

STOP!

Before you cut into that cover there is one more thing you should do! Before cutting apart the magazine, scan the front cover. Remember, we are cutting away part of the magazine so that we can get a better scans of the inside pages. But in doing so we are cutting the covers short. Before debinding the magazine you are going to scan the cover. This will ensue that you get the entire cover since debinding often causes you to lose some of the text and graphics they squeeze onto the cover, often right up to the spine.

If your cover has an address label stuck to it, you can easily remove it with a hair dryer. Set the hair dryer as hot as it goes, and hold it a couple inched from the label, moving back and forth over the label. After about 30 seconds, you can try to peel the corner of the label away. If you feel any resistance you should immediately stop and continue heating the label. After several more seconds, try again. The label should peel off rather easily. Once the label is removed, there may still be some glue residue left on the cover. This glue can re-adhere to other pages or leave marks on your scanner's bed. You can continue to use the hair dryer to try and rub off any left over glue. If it doesn't come off, don't worry about it too much. Just make sure you check the scanner bed after scanning the cover to make sure it doesn't have any marks or smudges.

Now we are ready to debind! Place the magazine in front of you with the front cover facing up and the spine facing away from you. This will place the binding in a neutral spot, which can accommodate people who are left- or right- handed. It will also ensure that you are never cutting towards yourself. Take your ruler and lay it at about 4mm from the edge (about 1/8th of an inch for those still using Imperial standards) from the edge of the spine, making sure that the ruler is parallel to the spine so that pages are cut straight. 1/8th of an inch is generally a large enough amount that you aren't cutting through the glue used to bind the magazine. On occasion, you will come across pages that are still stuck together. It rarely happens, but it happens.  When it does, the only thing you can really do is carefully and slowly pull the pages apart and hope that the damage is minimal. On pages with no pattern, it's easy to fix the glue area in editing. If you want to avoid this altogether, you can either increase the amount of space you cut to ¼ of an inch, though you'll probably find this is too much. You can always pick something in between.

Using your non-dominant hand, apply enough pressure on the ruler so that it doesn't move as you cut. With your dominant hand, take the box cutter and make a full length cut down the magazine. You should only be applying enough pressure to the knife so that you are cutting through a maximum of 3 pages to start. After you have made your first cut, remove the ruler from the magazine. Grab the cover and any other loose pages and flip them over next to the magazine with the cover facing down and the pages laying right-side-up so that you can read what is on the page properly. This pile will become your debound pile. You will continue to follow the original cut lines and work through 2-3 pages at a time. After each cut, you will move the separate bits, page by page, to the debound pile. After you have made several cuts, enough pages should be removed so that you can use the spine as your cut line instead of the ruler; just line your blade up with the raised spine and don't worry about having to hold a ruler steady.

You can also start to use more pressure to cut through more than 2-3 pages at once. Be careful at the edge you are starting at, since your blade will start at the very edge and could tear the pages if it is not sharp enough. When you start cutting through more than 2-3 pages at a time, instead of picking the pages up and moving them to the debind pile, use your fingers and slide the pages towards you, like how a fancy dealer slides cards off the deck with their fingers. Any pages that don't move easily or completely away from the spine will need an extra cut at the spot holding it back. This is also when you'll find out if glue has seeped over and gotten the pages more stuck than normal.

When you are done, the debound pile should have its back cover facing you right-side-up. Put it in a safe place until you are ready to scan (I put my piles in the auto document feeder tray until I'm ready to get scanning, as it is blocked off on three sides, thus eliminating the risk of it falling on the floor or getting mixed up with another magazine).

Magazines bound with staples do not need to be taken apart. They are more work to scan, as you will have to hold them in place and turn them around manually, but in the end you'll still have the magazine fully intact. If you intend to throw it away anyhow, you can always dismantle it by removing the staples and then cutting down the middle of the magazine with a ruler and box cutter a few pages at a time.