Tomoe River B5 And A4 Notebooks With Replaceable Pages - Diy

[Honeybadgers]

So this notebook is a tad shy of perfect for me - the paper will be blank, but tomoe river paper is great with a backing page, and I can confirm that the backing paper is clearly legible on both sides, with writing of a quite dark ink (used a wet 0.8 stub with J. Herbin Lie de Thé and I still had backing lines for writing on the reverse) and the potential upside of which is you get the cool effect of "look ma, no lines!" but perfectly straight and uniform appearance when the backing is moved to the next page. It also can have the versatility of lined ruling in 5mm or 6mm, or graph by simply using the papers that come along with the notebook (the paper that comes in the kokuyo is darn good nonetheless, and I highly recommend that paper for taking notes since it will dry more quickly than tomoe)

 

I've been really disappointed in every tomoe paper notebook I've ever run across since nothing comes in a good size. A5 is stupid for proper schoolwork, IMO. So I set out to design a notebook that will use B5, which is just big enough. I also have a binder and some pre-dotted A4 loose leaf on the way, which will work for this as well, all you need is the paper and the binder, the hole punch in this guide works on A4 paper too.

 

I tried printing dot grid onto my tomoe paper and was only modestly successful - my laserjet printer could print on ONE side of the page just fine, but after that, it would just get really angry and jam no matter what I did when I flipped the page over.

 

So, here's what you need, listed on Amazon:

 

- Kokuyo Campus B5 notebook (this is a little bigger than A5, not quite full notebook size, but if you want tomoe in a more "american friendly" size, get an A4 kokuyo smart slim binder, this same hole punch, and tomoe river paper, which conveniently comes in dot grid as well as blank in this size) The notebooks come in a bunch of colors and the mechanism for opening the rings is quite simple and rugged.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Kokuyo-Campus-Smart-Ring-Binder/dp/B0066LZLEC/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1538893021&sr=8-6&keywords=kokuyo+campus+smart+ring+binder

 

 

 

- Tomoe river B5 loose sheet paper (available in ivory or white, but only blank, but we'll address that)

 

https://www.amazon.com/Tomoe-River-B5-size-Sheets-TMR-B5P-W/dp/B01GFRK5B0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538893435&sr=8-1&keywords=tomoe%2Briver%2Bb5%2Bpaper&th=1

 

This link also has the A4 if you want to do this with the bigger stuff, get the 30 ring A4 binder here

 

 

- Carl gauge punch for A4/B5 (it does both and will put 26 holes in B5 and 30 in A4)

 

This punch is a little pricey at $28, but it's amazingly well made and the punch is super precise.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Carl-Gauge-26-Hole-30-Hole-Punch/dp/B005Q5Y4EW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1538893378&sr=8-3&keywords=26+hole+punch

 

- Ruler (you should have one of these anyways)

 

- Superfine nib (japanese EF is possible) or any other superfine nib with black ink. I used an EF platinum desk pen with carbon black ink and the results were perfect, but a technical pen would be fine, as would the superfine sharpie. It just needs to lay down a very thin, solid black line as the lines on the paper are a bit too hard to see behind the tomoe sheet.

 

And if you want 7mm lined ruling (the notebook comes with a few sheets of 6mm, which I found too thin, but keep a template of anyways) or graph paper, get it here

 

https://www.amazon.com/Kokuyo-Campus-Loose-Filler-Paper/dp/B07CNM3GKT/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538892598&sr=8-1&keywords=kokuyo+campus+b5+7mm

 

https://www.amazon.com/Kokuyo-Campus-Loose-Filler-Paper/dp/B07BZK549G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538892626&sr=8-1&keywords=kokuyo+campus+b5+grid

 

You have to buy big multipacks to get your template sheet, but the paper is quite good, so I recommend just getting one or two more of the b5 notebooks and/or binders and using the paper. It's got good coating, sheens well, decent dry times, no bleed or feather, but an occasional failure in the odd little spot of the coating, same as rhodia or mnemosone or apica. This is just how you get a notebook set up for tomoe. If you want to get the graph paper and cheap out, you can actually get away with it on the 6mm paper provided. Kokuyo's lined paper actually has little detents marked in the paper in equal 6mm intervals, so you can have a 6mm ruled graph paper template from just the standard sheet)

 

Tl;DR, if you are okay with 6mm ruling, you don't need to spend the $50 on the paper packets. Just take two of the sheets included with the binder and follow along.

 

I never said this was gonna be cheap, but the kokuyo binders have been REALLY sturdy for me, I've been beating on 'em for about 6 months of daily use and my two main ones are still perfectly solid. They don't hold a ton of pages (About 30-50 sheets absolute max of the standard paper, after which I move them to a b5 slim binder.)

 

Firstly, here's everything (sans the ruler and pen, you can get whatever you have laying around)

 

 

Second, slide the paper into the punch gauge with the folding section flat, the B5 paper will slot into the little notch sized for it. Do this by pulling gently on the white bar and it will fold up. When the paper is in place, snap it down and it'll hold the paper in place for a perfect punch.

 

 

Third, fold the notched section down and insert the punch into all slots labeled "B5" or "B5/A4" and punch, this will give you a perfect 26 hole (or 30 if you're doing the A4, just do the "A4" and "B5/A4" notches, skipping the two "B5" ones.

 

I found the max number of tomoe river sheets that would fit this punch was 8, but it shifted the paper slightly (you can see the slight shift on these pictures since I was trying out the max of 8. I didn't have the issue with 5, so I'd stick with 5 max, as indicated on the punch itself

 

 

 

Next, using a ruler, very carefully trace the lines on the desired paper. If you want to stick with the simple way, do the vertical lines first on the normal ruled (it has little markings showing you 6mm increments, and these will be covered when you do the horizontal lines, so do vertical first) I personally did all 3, so in my notebook I have 6mm ruled, 7mm ruled, and 5mm graph ruled. I recommend doing two pages of each one you plan on using, that way you can do the reverse of the page without having to open it up and re position the backing every page turn.

 

 

Here's how easy the backing lines are to see. In person, they're even clearer.

 

 

And how clear they are in the reverse once you've written on it (this writing sample is with a very wet stub nib with a very saturated brown ink, Lie de Thé)

 

And the end result. super fancy looking to have well organized notes with no lines.

 

 

If you're willing to use 6mm ruling and skate by with a 6mm graph rule, this entire setup can be had in B5 form for $46, and you wind up with 100 sheets of paper, each 100 more sheets costing only $11. So a bit of an initial investment, yes, but I'm going to be using this extensively, since I love tomoe river but have hated every tomoe notebook I've ever touched since I can't stand A5 paper.

 

[inkypete]

Nice work. Love the creative way you set out to solve the problem. Thanks for sharing.

[XYZZY]

My main deterrent from projects like this is just spending the time to figure out which products to buy in order to get started. That was easy back in the day when I could find all this in a bricks & mortar store, but ordering online makes it much harder. So the links to real products and the assurance of knowing that the combination is tried & tested is awesome. So thanks very much for taking the time to figure it out as well as to share.

 

I tried printing dot grid onto my tomoe paper and was only modestly successful - my laserjet printer could print on ONE side of the page just fine, but after that, it would just get really angry and jam no matter what I did when I flipped the page over.

 

 

Well that piques my curiosity. I'm assuming you tried both duplex printing and manually flipping the paper for two passes of one-sided printing. So I'm curious what the problem was, any thoughts? Does the heat from a laser printer do bad things to the finish of TR paper to make harder to feed?

[JakobS]

A practical way to spiral bound Tomoe River paper, though I would probably go for the B5, or A5 sized Kokuyo Shikkari paper made for these notebooks which has overtaken Tomoe River for me as my favorite paper, a bit more absorbent, just as smooth and already hole punched( though I don't keep it in spiral bound notebooks!)...

[amberleadavis]

GREAT JOB

[Honeybadgers]

My main deterrent from projects like this is just spending the time to figure out which products to buy in order to get started. That was easy back in the day when I could find all this in a bricks & mortar store, but ordering online makes it much harder. So the links to real products and the assurance of knowing that the combination is tried & tested is awesome. So thanks very much for taking the time to figure it out as well as to share.

 

 

Well that piques my curiosity. I'm assuming you tried both duplex printing and manually flipping the paper for two passes of one-sided printing. So I'm curious what the problem was, any thoughts? Does the heat from a laser printer do bad things to the finish of TR paper to make harder to feed?

 

I think it's just the fragile nature of tomoe, after the first run through my laser printer it put a slight curl in the paper that it just couldn't handle grabbing again correctly.

 

And yes I've tried both. The duplex printing resulted in a jammed ball of paper.

 

The finish itself stays fine, I've used the single sided dot grid without issue.

Edited November 18, 2018 by Honeybadgers

[Honeybadgers]

A practical way to spiral bound Tomoe River paper, though I would probably go for the B5, or A5 sized Kokuyo Shikkari paper made for these notebooks which has overtaken Tomoe River for me as my favorite paper, a bit more absorbent, just as smooth and already hole punched( though I don't keep it in spiral bound notebooks!)...

 

I use both. The tomoe is nice for when you REALLY want things to look fancy and be line free. But in day to day use, I do use the standard 7mm ruled and 5mm graph.

[BaronWulfraed]

 

I think it's just the fragile nature of tomoe, after the first run through my laser printer it put a slight curl in the paper that it just couldn't handle grabbing again correctly.

 

At one time, paper sold for copiers used to be marked as to long or short grain orientation -- I forget which was used when, but the convention was that one had to match the paper to the copier feed direction (did it load short side first or long side first). Most desktop copiers/printers feed short edge; but large console copier/printers tend to run the paper long edge.

[amberleadavis]

OH, I remember that - and TR paper when you order it from TR tells you which way the grain should go.

[Honeybadgers]

no amount of printer finagling will make it work in my brother laserjet printer.

[neverforget]

Thank you for sharing your work on this! I am annoyed with the difficulty of sourcing a large (a4 or letter) tomoe river paper notebook.

 

At this time, i've settled on using the a4 loose sheets which are reasonably priced but I am interested in better organization of the loose sheets.

[Anjor]

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for figuring this out and for posting this!!

 

I have been thinking about this EXACT problem for a few weeks/months now. I don't find A5 (or smaller) size to be of adequate use for myself, and simply need a bigger sized paper, while also wanting the flexibility of assembling and moving loose-leaf paper. I already have the Kokuyo Campus in B5, and several sets of Tomoe River paper in B5 on the way. I didn't know that I could put them together, and thanks to you, now I know and how... That punch is expensive, but if it can help me sort out a consistent and long-term system, I'm willing to invest in it.

 

I've been moping around and looking at various binders, rings systems etc. but I do like the small and relatively unobstrusive size of the rings in this notebook, plus the functionality of incorporating loose-leaf paper and moving things around when needed. I assume I'd have to be careful, given how thin TR paper is, but I'm willing to take care to make this happen.

 

Thank you again!

[Anjor]

So, the punch linked to in the OP is this one, which is $70. I'm hopeful that this version, which is closer to $28 (as mentioned in the OP) will suffice. This 3rd one and 4th one also popped up in my search. Will have to read the details on them to make an informed choice. 

 

I have also read about and considered figuring out a system of having TR paper punched with a Staples Arc punch and then pairing it with Atoma rings and leather cover for a nicer option of materials, but:

- I've heard the Staples punch is only imperfectly compatible with the Atoma system

- Atoma rings, while nicer, are much bigger so probably more disruptive during writing

- TR paper may be too delicate for this system

- it would be a much more expensive system, given the sourcing of Atoma rings and covers, and especially if looking for a perfect fit via an Atoma punch

[mhguda]

I just used my Carl 20 hole punch to punch holes in two 100-sheet TR 52gsm packs, and bound them in one of the ring binders from Kokuyo. No issues. You do have quite some punching to do, as the hole punch does not take very many sheets at a time, but the result is very precise.