How to Make a Secret Hollow Book Safe

Hollow books with secret compartments have been around for centuries, and are prevalent in a number of real and fictitious stories. One of the major draws to this simple diversion safe is it’s relatively low cost and ease of access. We’ve scraped the internet for some of the best guides on how to make your very own hollow book safe. Enjoy!

Make an iPad Case from Hollow Hardcover Book – Here’s a brief niche guide with an accompanying video on how to make a hollow book safe that acts as a case for your iPad. It’s actually a great idea. It can protect your investment from scrapes and small drops, but also conceal it when it’s laying in your car or on a table in public. I haven’t seen any way to secure the ipad inside the book, so the iPad is likely to fly out if dropped from any real distance. This same technique can be applied to iPods, Kindles and other electronic devices.

How to Make a Hollow Book Safe – Jenna Wilcox put together this 11 step guide on how to make your hollow book safe. She glued the outside, let dry, then started cutting 50 pages in on her book with a utility knife. The final product is a great looking hollow book safe. I bet she has found something other than the remote to stash in it by now.

How to Make a Secret Hollow Book – Great guide including 12 pictures to show every step of the process of making this secret hollow book. They use a 50%-70% glue to 30%-50% water solution to stick the pages together. Final picture shows some data, cash, a lighter and some marbles in this hollow book. Hopefully their stash has grown since then.

How to Hollow Out a Book in 80 Easy Steps – Here’s a seriously detailed how-to on hollowing out a secret book safe. Every step has a picture accompanying it. The author goes the extra mile and finds a page that will fit perfectly in the back of the hollowed out space. Several steps show how to make your glue/water mixture and cover the book in plastic wrap to avoid getting any glue on the cover. Final book looks great!

How to Make a Hollow Book Treasure Box – This vintage inspired treasure box was made by connecting 3 hollowed out Reader’s Digest books together to create a deeper cavity within the books. She also adds a collage and smooths out the inside by gluing bits of the waste paper over the rough cut interior surfaces. There’s a warning on how time consuming this project is early in the article, but her secret treasure chest looks like it was worth it when it’s blending in with other books on her shelf.

How to Make a Hollow Book – Simple guide breaks the process of creating your hollow book down to 7 steps. Shows how to wrap the front book cover so the glue won’t stick and it’ll continue to open. The author says the project is easily done in an afternoon if you’re persistent and have all the supplies you need. They made this one as a Christmas present for their fiance. Keys, camera and wallet are stashed in the main picture. It could be nice when used on a nightstand to put your pocketware.

How to Make a Secret Book Safe – This lover of secret compartments put together a 10 step guide on how to make your own secret hollow book safe to keep valuables hidden. The book from which he carved out the space is old and worn, but could fit in on many a book shelf, in a drawer, box or about anywhere else. Instead of using weight to press the pages together while drying, the author uses a bench vise. He also finishes the inside with a layer of felt. Just another take on hollowing out a book.

Make a Better Book Safe – This set of instructions uses a completely different method of construction. You still glue up the outside of the pages, but once try, you remove the pages from the book cover. Instead of using a knife or blade to cut out the compartment, you use a bandsaw or scroll saw. Put the modified pages back in the cover, attach, and you have a what the author calls a better book safe to stash your valuables! They didn’t include a completely finished picture, but this method is going to give you considerably more interior volume.

DIY Secret Hollow Book Redux – The guys at lifehacker try to take the tedious work of slicing out each page in this down and dirty hollow book safe DIY guide. Their end result is a remarkably custom hollow book, made to fit several vintage valuables, each in their own compartment. They use an oscillating saw, which you’ll need to make these more complicated shapes without spending huge amounts of time. The actual guide is a 10 step PDF file that makes use of a lot of clamps. This is a project intended more for a workshop than arts and crafts class.

How To Make a Kindle Cover from a Hollowed Out Hardback Book – Here’s a great guide on making a cover for your electronic device to protect and conceal. In this instance, the author states that it can be tough to find the perfect book, but worth the extra effort. You don’t want a book too big or thick to defeat the purpose of handling a small device, but you don’t want it to small with thin walls were breakage could be a problem. Craftsmanship on this project is top notch.

Make a Hollow Book Camera Case – This guide is targeted specifically at making your hollow book safe conceal a camera, but the principles can be applied to any device. The 10 steps are similar to other hollow book guides. They include information on tidying up the inside of the book with fabric, paper or ribbon. There is also a smart step at the end about adding a string around the book to keep it closed and the contents secure.

DIY Book Safe – Detailed guide with 12 pictures showing the process of making book safes in bulk. They use a 4:1 ratio of water to wood glue in their mixture. They also use a cookie sheet placed in front of the back cover to keep from cutting the back. The author suggests buying extra blades for your Xacto or utility knife. They also say it’ll take about 45 minutes to cut your recessed area page by page in the book.

Creative Endeavor – Here’s a very detailed guide with 25 pictures explaining how to make this decoy to conceal items sitting on a shelf. The author cuts out the guts of 5 different books, then connects the covers to create a large secret hollow space behind. It’s then used to hide the clutter of routers and modems sitting on a bookshelf. The project looks pretty simple and works great, while still leaving easy access to the stash behind.

DIY Project: Secret Storage Books – This secret storage book is made from cardboard instead of an actual book, and decorated to look like a large bound novel. Being made of cardboard it may be less durable than an actual book safe, but the secret compartment inside is much larger in proportion to the outside. This tutorial includes 8 pictures to walk you through the construction process.

Secret Bookshelf Storage with Records – Ok, this one isn’t a book, but we thought it was done pretty well and wanted to share. They cut out the centers of a stack of old vinyl record covers. Each side is covered by a couple uncut covers. The center is reinforced with a couple pine boards screwed together. The end product doesn’t stand out at all and encompasses a large center volume compared to most similar secret compartments.