Book Safe

I've always wanted to make one of these, and nothing's more painful than an itch you don't scratch.

Edit: Holy crap! 50k views and 500 favorites? You guys must love book safes and/or hate Twilight! Thanks, everyone!

- A hardcover book. The bigger, the better, but it NEEDS to be hardcover for strength.
- A knife or razor. You'll need this for various trimming and cutting jobs.
- Glue. You could probably get by with just white glue, but I used three different kinds.
- A brush for applying glue. Try using something you're willing to toss, not your nice painting brush
- (optional) A bandsaw. This makes cutting out the hollow much easier.
- (optional) Lining material. I used leftover art paper, but fabric and other such materials will work too.
- Weight. Anything will do, so long as it holds things down during gluing.

Another author included "a book you don't value" in the list of materials and tools. I'd say this qualifies.

You could just cut out the inside with a craft knife, but I decided to try the method where you remove the cover and use a bandsaw later. In this book, I found some kind of plastic webbing and surprisingly sticky glue that I had to cut with a sharp knife.

You might want to do this before cutting the cover out, but I diluted some white glue with water at a ratio around 1:5. I painted it along the outer edges to try and keep the pages together. While it dries, leave some weight on top and go play some Minecraft in the meantime.

I used a bandsaw for this part, which gives you a cleaner cut than a craft knife would. But getting those 90° corners on the inside means you need to cut across and give yourself some room first.

In either case, a wall thickness of about 1/2 inch should be enough.

As usual, be sure to leave the blade guard no more than 1/4 inch above your material. Safety First!

I used three different kinds of glue for this: white glue to attach it to the end cover page, (very smelly) epoxy to harden the insides, and some Gorilla Glue to patch up some spots along the edges I thought looked loose.

Give the whole thing an hour or two for the glue to set.

A note about Gorilla Glue: remember that it expands quite a bit. I used it sparingly here because of that.

After gluing down the cover page, I had to cut open a window to the inside. Kind of papered over the thing.

That ugly inside just won't fly, so some lining is in order. I just happened to have some nice marbled red paper that needed using up.

And that should just about do it.

In retrospect, I should've picked a less conspicuous book. I wouldn't normally be caught dead (or even undead) with anything by Stephanie Meyer, but I suppose you could always say it's just a gag gift; it did only cost like two dollars at Goodwill.