Why do I take apart my Leuchtturm notebook?

Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks

I would say you already know Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks.

These beautiful notebooks with either a hard or soft cover, in various sizes, mainly Medium size (similar to A5), but as well smaller like Pocket size (similar to A6) or Paperback size (similar to B6) or bigger like Master (similar to A4) or Composition (similar to B5).

This lovely fountain pen friendly paper in 80 gsm, 100 gsm or 120gsm, a light yellow paper color, not too yellow, but not bright white.

The covers in various colors, bright or sometimes pastell, mostly in black.

And various layouts, like lines, grid, dot grid or plain.

Ok, enough of the praises, I guess you know these notebooks 😉

And I really do like the paper, mostly the 80gsm one.

It is very fountain pen friendly, there is no bleeding, no feathering, the lines stay very crisp.

Maybe a bit of ghosting, but this should be expected with 80gsm paper. But really not a lot, the writing is not disturbing in any way on the back side of any sheet, not like on thinner paper.

I really like to write on this paper, it gives a bit of feedback, it is smooth but not glossy, any nib has a bit of "grip", the pen is not sliding around on this paper, but gives you good control of your writing. The paper feels kind of soft, the lines of any nib look like they should (B nib = broad lines, F nib = fine lines).

Sometimes, on paper which is more glossy and hard, like paper from MD Paper from Midori for example, any nib lines look thinner. On MD Paper the pen slides around, the lines look thinner and take longer to dry. Therefore I much prefer the Leuchtturm paper than any other.

writing with fountain pen in Midori Notebook

writing with fountain pens in Leuchtturm notebook

close up of line width in Midori Notebook

close up of line width in Leuchtturm notenbook

The images show the difference of line width on Midori Paper and Leuchtturm Paper. On Leuchtturm paper the lines show up broader.

Why do I take it apart?

After reading the above I guess you are wondering why I would take apart such a nice notebook.

Well, on the one hand I really do like the paper and I like to use it, for planning and especially for journaling.

But. and this is the main reason, these notebooks do lie flat but not totally, and I like really really flat-open notebooks.

And: with their 250 pages the notebooks are just too thick for me!

And: I would like to take a notebook with me, toss it in a bag and in a shop hold it in my hand without any problem.

Flatability:

For me a page needs to lie flat, I don`t want to hold down any page with my other hand in order to write on a page. I want to either tuck away my other hand (in my case my left hand while writing with my right), or like to rest my chin in my left hand while journaling.

And do you know this feeling when your pen first has to push down the paper a bit before you can write? In any bound notebook any page has "a bit of a curve" and is not lying flat, either you have to hold it down with your hand or your pen has to push it down, I`m not a fan of either option.

Thickness:

Did you ever have the feeling that your hand is "hovering" above any page the more further down on any page you are writing? When you get down to the bottom and the more right you write, the more you have to hold up your wrist. But I like to have my hand on the paper or, nearing the bottom of page, on the table so that I can write comfortably.

Portability:

Ring covers like Filofax do tend to get very thick. Yes, they hold a lot of pages but I would like to take my planner with me to take it out in a shop to look at the list of inks so that I do not buy any double ones for example. A notebook needs therefore to be slim enough to take it with me and easy to hold in any shop. Have you ever held a ring cover open in your hand while with the other hand you took something off of a shelf and how often did that ring cover fell down? Well, happened a lot to me....

my solution: make a wire-bound notebook

and therefore I take apart my Leuchtturm notebooks in order to use the paper, punch the sheets and rebind it with a wire-bind-machine.

the result: a flat open and thin notebook with my favorite paper!!

flat open, wire bound notebook with Leuchtturm paper

thickness of Leuchtturm and wire bound notebooks - Leuchtturm with 250 pages, wirebounds with each 100 pages

There are a few things which you would need to have in order to bind your own notebooks:

• binding machine

  • nothing fancy, a manual one is sufficient, you will find enough in any internet shop, I have one from Fellowes

• thicker plastic sheets as covers to protect your notebook

• maybe nice colored paper to make a dashboard

• wires in different sizes, I mostly use 14mm ones

• cutting machine to even out the sheets

picture of Fellowes wire bind machine

picture of Fellowes wires

Removing the pages from the Leuchtturm notebook is quite easy:

• find the pages where you can see the small white thread in the spine

• cut these threads with a scissor

• then gather the sheets together (mostly 7 sheets left and right, but not the ones which are glued to the spine), remove this booklet of sheets by pulling gently

• the threads will stay in the notebook and you will now have a little booklet

• cut off the spine of these booklets with a cutting machine to have an even edge and trim them to the same width and/or height

threads to be cut in a Leuchtturm notebook

Leuchtturm notebook after taking out some sheets

page of Leuchtturm notebook shown with threads cut after taking out the little booklet of sheets

Then you can cut the thicker plastic sheets in the same size as your paper size, maybe cut a colored paper as a dashboard in the same size and use your binding machine to first punch the pages , then add them together.

And there we are:

a wire bound notebook, perfect flatabilty and not too thick!

two A5 wirebound notebooks with Leuchtturm paper

two wire bound notebooks beside each other

one wire bound notebook

one open wire bound notebook, left side plastic cover, right side colored paper

three wire bound notebooks, two in A5, one in B6

one wire bound notebook in A5

The images show two A5 notebooks and a smaller B6 planner, which I will show more closely in another blog post.

I use the A5 ones for my journaling with one page per day. I have bound together 52 sheets of Leuchtturm dot grid paper, which gives me room enough for three months, with some spare pages if I maybe need to write more than one page per day.

The possibility to make your own notebooks gives you unlimited options, in size, in thickness, paper which you can use. And not only with journal paper, but make your own planner with printable inserts in any size, use inserts which you like, add them in the sequence that you like to have them.

I use plain Leuchtturm paper, after removing and cutting the sheets to the desired size, I print my own planner pages on these sheets and bind them together.

And I use the dot grid or grid paper from Leuchtturm to create my journal books

And, if you have to rearrange the sheets, well, you can always remove the wire again, rearrange everything and bind the sheets together again. The wires are normally sold in the hundreds, not that expensive, therefore you are not stuck with one book which you have made but you can make a new one anytime.

If you like to add any single pages after binding, you can do that as well. Punch any sheet with your binding machine, cut little slits in each punching hole and insert the sheet at any place in your notebook, just like adding a sheet to any discbound notebook.

You might say but I do not have any pockets or no pen holder or no zipper ... yeah, well, you are right, this is a very minimalistic approach to a planner or notebook. It does not give you the same options as a ring cover like Filofax for example. But it has other advantages, like flatability, like thinness, like flexibility and it is so thin and not bulky so that you can toss it in any bag and take it with you. And these advantages are just perfect for me!

I have now created some planners in various sizes for 2026 (wirebound, ring bound and hand written) and will show them to you in my next blog post. Stay tuned 😊

Thank you to all, stay healthy and (planner) peace to everyone!

Andrea

P.S. I have bought all my planners myself, I paid for them, I state my own personal opinions about them. When you click a link which I have added for you to see the original planners I do not get paid for it.