Our first beginner course of the year will be on February 4th and 5th. The course is already fully subscribed which is great but means we have a number of people looking to begin their journey's into bookbinding. Bookbinding however can be very equipment intensive. Additionally the availability of this equipment can be problematic.
Tony Firman has on his website a number of guides on how to make some of the basic equipment required, a simple bookbinding press (lying press), a punching cradle, and a sewing frame.
You can visit his wesite here:
http://www.tonyfirmanbookbinding.com/Making-simple-equipment.html to download the pdf's on how to create these basic tools with minimal equipment and woodworking skills.
Keep an eye on these articles as I will be adding some more articles of this nature over the next few days.