The clip?

[ardeegee]

This is a long shot, but does anyone know a place that one could buy just the metal clip that fits on the 300 to hold a cover in place? I'm toying with the idea of a custom cover, but need a way to hold it on (and I don't want to use elastic straps or velcro.)

I'm thinking of hitting the Goodwill stores and looking for an old hardback with similar dimensions to the Reader that I can reporpoise.

[DixieGal]

Never underestimate the power of the Velcro.

After the twerpy thieving workstudy "lifeguard" at the gym tried to steal my bag and broke the cover hinge thingy, I put some stick-on Velcro dots back there to hold it in. Works MUCH better than the original hinge thingies. It seems more stable and less floppy.

[Loose_Appeal]

You could fashion your own I guess, probably won't be hard. Maybe all you need is someone to measure the plastic clip for the reader that comes with Sony's leather cover cases.

What you could do if you have money to spare (This is just an idea I was thinking of when I was looking at my leather cover) is somehow, take the plastic clip out of the leather cover and superglue it to whatever cover you like.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Loose_Appeal

What you could do if you have money to spare (This is just an idea I was thinking of when I was looking at my leather cover) is somehow, take the plastic clip out of the leather cover and superglue it to whatever cover you like.

Actually, I thought that $30+ was Too Damn Much to pay for a cover, thus my wanting to make something cheaper. I was wanting a metal clip, though-- something like spring steel, which is what I assumed the "official" covers had.

[aceflor]

Been there, looked everywhere for it, could not find it. The original one is in plastic, and here in Europe you read very often that it broke which means:
1. it's not very solid really
2. it has to be replaced somehow, so the parts should be available

But I could not find it anywhere.

[Andybaby]

A case with velcro or corner straps work great for a home grown case, depending on your sewing skills or your acess to a sewing machine you can make a really nice case

while waiting for M-edge to come out with a leather case I had plans to make my own, but since I don't have a sewing machine it would have been difficult, I even contemplated buying a sewing machine so I can do it. in any event,

if you have access to a sewing machine, my perfect case would be Denim from some old jeans with some leather accents for the corners (make some leather triangles and use them as corner straps as well as shock absorbers in case of falls) and have the front cover be soft.

$30 is way too much to pay for a sony case (they are worth $5 max) if/when medge comes out, $30 is defenatly worth it. but I think they are even cheaper

[ardeegee]

So, I dropped the idea of the clip.

I took my Sony Reader with me to a Goodwill store to look for hardback books around the right length/width/height to hold the reader between their covers. I found several, bought a few possibilities. But the real winner was a children's book called Spectacles by Ellen Raskin. It was wider than it was tall, and I was wanting a cover that flips up like a page in a clipboard, not opens to the left like a book. Cover faded nearly away, ex-library book, earliest dated stamp from 1975, latest from 1984. Checked out 64 times. Of course being a Book Person, I felt bad about desecrating it. Buuut...

I cut the pages that held the book to the boards at the spine, then trimmed around a half-inch from the right side of the boards to give it a snug fit around the reader. Took a couple of pieces of cloth from a "rag bag" of cloth remnants I bought and glued them around the boards. The "rags" happened to be cut from t-shirts, and one of them had a folded seam along an edge. Rather than cut it off, I thought to utilize it by putting the seam along the spine of the boards, strengthening it. (This was actually two steps-- one step to glue one side, wait half an hour, then glue the other side.) Then I took a piece of black faux-leather vinyl I bought and repeated the process, wrapping it around the first layer of cloth and gluing it in place. Last I had to decide whether to use the Velcro buttons I had bought to hold the reader in place or try to attach strips of elastic at the 4 corners of the reader, and ended up going with the Velcro (even though I had been hesitant about putting sticky tape on the back of the reader.

It is a little rough around the edges, but I'm pretty pleased with the results, and still have enough materials left over to make another cover out of one of the other, side opening books.



Edit to add:

I just finished making my second custom cover. Production steps very similar to those involved in making the first cover (except no trimming of the boards involved.) This time the book used was The Five People You Meet in Heaven.