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How to build your own stamp album (stamps for collection)

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Material needed to build a diy stamp album

DIY stamp albums can be made using cardboard and transparency film, the latter being fixed to the first using double-sided tape and that's it!
Cardboard (some call it carton board, like the one for packaging) is available in different colors and thicknesses.
For the stamp album pages, it is recommended to use a cardboard of not less than 1mm of thickness.
Most common dimension is 100 x 70 cm but you will also encounter smaller sheets.
Colors can be any of:
-White on both sides
-White on one side, raw cardboard (grey) on the other side
-Dark grey as per below pictures
-Black on one side, white on the other
-Etc.
You can use any transparency film for printers, which is thick enough to meet the required strength when holding the stamps (see further below).
The double sided tape has to be however the one of a roller dispenser.
It is not practical at all to use standard tape rolls, especially the tape must be of the smallest possible width.
Adhesive roller dispensers provide 8m of continuous double-sided tape, in a width of 6 or 8mm.

Cutting the stamp album pages

You can work on a glass surface or simply on your ceramic floor tiles and use a cutter but a rotary paper trimmer gives better results in terms of finishing and allows you to cut faster.
You may need to start with the cutter in order to let the cardboard fit in the rotary trimmer.
Once your cardboard has been cut to the required page size of your stamp album, you now need to punch the sheets depending on your binder type. Use only spiral binding or 4-ring (4-hole) binders but never use 2-ring (2-hole) binders as these will damage the cardboard page of the album.

Cutting the stamps holding band

Now measure the available distance both horizontally and vertically to determine the cut size of the transparency film, which will constitute the transparent band behind which you fit your stamps.
3cm of band height is enough for absolutely all postage stamps including the ones with a large format.
You may increase the band height up to 3.7cm.
Again, the rotary paper trimmer remains the ideal choice for cutting straight and with no resulting defects to the transparency film.

Assembling the stamp holder bands to the stamp album pages

Spread the adhesive tape in a U shape to the bottom and sides of the transparent bend and apply it to the cardboard page by pressing hard on the adhesive. You will need to train on a dummy paper the first time but it is quite easy and fast to apply.
Continue by adding stamp bands up to reaching the maximum number of bands that can fit in a page.
Leave a spacing of 6-12mm between the bands.
You may add your collection stamps immediately after assembling your stamp album page, the adhesive is fully dry when applied.
You can buy your stamp album here in case you do not wish to build one:

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