Back in the early eighties I got a copy of Tony Andruzi's "DEAMON"S DIARY," and one of the wonderful routines mater of factly described a self opening book. (page 70 in my copy of the little book) It was but a small part of  a routine that used several home-made props and I had dismissed the whole, but wanted to build a self opening book.

A few months ago I mentioned on the Shadow Digest about some self adhesive suede material that I found at the local Walmart. It gives texture and ambiance to that which it is applied. Relatively inexpensive, it comes in rolls and is found in the shelf covering department along with other self adhesive materials.

My first step was the preparation of the opening mechanism.

Using one of those decorative pop open balls I removed the multi-folded paper and exposed the plate and spring that makes the ball open, as shown below.  

Measuring the spine of the device, a slot was cut into the center of the open spine on the book that I selected to become the prop. The slot was opened enough for the spine of the device to be inserted when the open wings of the mechanism were placed through slits in several pages. The wings were glued down with rubber cement and the spine covered with paper tape to hide the mechanism.  Several pages were glued together above and below the two wings and the book was placed under a heavy object to allow the glue to dry.

The weight of the book keeps it closed but as single pages are turned, the weight is reduced enough that when the balance is just right, the spring loaded section opens up to my selected page.

My next step was to make the book into a locked book. You can see how this was done by going to Part 2.

PART 2