Conservation of 19th Century Publisher’s Bindings with Todd Pattison

The second presentation I attended at the Guild of Book Workers 2011 Seminar on Standards of Excellence in Hand Bookbinding was Todd Pattison’s Conservation of 19th Century Publisher’s Bindings.

Thankfully, I was not late and got a seat that was closer to the action.

Todd said that his technique is most useful with cloth bindings that have most of their spine cloth present. His goal is to preserve as much of the original binding materials as possible, at the same time as creating a structurally sound binding. Efficiency is also important – conservation labs don’t have the resources to spend unlimited amounts of time on repairs.

After removing cloth that was still attached to the spine and lifting cloth from the boards, he used methyl cellulose as a poultice when removing spine crud (my word choice, not his).

The goal is to get the spine as clean as possible without doing any damage.

Todd said that when he rebacks a book, he uses airplane linen and acrylic paint.

After rounding the spine, he lined the spine using a strong, long fiber Japanese tissue. He said that he doesn’t like to use PVA with Japanese tissue – he prefers wheat paste.

Before applying the cloth, he attached a paper tube to the spine to simulate the hollow of a case binding. The tube is 1/4″ shorter than the outer edge of the spine. A layer of medium-weight Japanese paper was applied as a final layer. The length of the paper is slightly longer than the spine so that it can be turned in at the head and tail.

Todd prefers to tone the paper when it’s on the book – he uses heavy body acrylic paints for this purpose. The goal is to match the original cloth as closely as possible.

Next, he reattached the cloth to the covers using PVA. He advised that you should feel over the cloth before you glue it down so that nothing gets trapped beneath it.

Interior hinges were repaired using Japanese paper and starch paste. The paper color can be toned using watered-down acrylic paint.

Among his other tips:

• From Don Glaister: To minimize warping, coat an oversized paste down with PVA, let it dry, and then trim it to the correct size. Glue it into the book quickly.
• Using watered-down paste will keep the paper from getting too stiff.
• Tear the edges of paper when possible because cut edges don’t match up as well.

Check out Todd’s Flickr set with more images of this type of repair.

I’ll leave you with my favorite quote of the presentation:

Brittle paper really keeps me up at night.

I can’t say the same. For me, it’s usually reruns of Law & Order: SVU.

Scratching the Surface: Disguising and Embellishing Wood with Daniel Essig

This blog post is the first in a series of four posts detailing the presentations I attended at the Guild of Book Workers 2011 Seminar on Standards of Excellence in Hand Bookbinding.

It isn’t my intention to describe these presentations blow-by-blow (although I’ll probably do it anyway). Instead, I hope to give you the flavor of each presentation, along with highlighting interesting tips and/or techniques.

I was late to the first seminar because I experienced some travel confusion (stupid Boston traffic…grumble, grumble). Thankfully, I had a wonderful travel companion to help keep my spirits up – thanks Jill!

First up – Daniel Essig‘s Scratching the Surface: Disguising and Embellishing Wood. Since I arrived late, I ended up in the back row. Here’s the view:

It’s just like you were there…isn’t it?

Dan said that when he researches wood finishes, he looks to African sculpture for inspiration. Among his techniques for distressing wood: burning, scoring, scraping, scratching, hammering, gouging, and carving. He likes to create no more than five marks with any one tool.

Quartersawn boards are more stable and are therefore, preferable for book covers. In a nutshell, they warp less. One of the funniest things Dan said was how if you carve wood with your hands in front of your chisel, then you are working in the “ER Position”. (I’m probably the last to hear that one.)

When burning wood, you’ll get a more dramatic effect if you use wood with an open grain. You should always burn wood on both sides to help avoid warping (the technique dries out the wood).

 Among his other tips:

• Use oil-free steel wool.
• “You can’t steel wool too much.”
• Use a Dremel to outline the wood grain.
• Cloth-backed sandpaper holds up better.
• Carve with the grain of the wood to prevent splintering.

Among Dan’s finishing products – milk paint, paste wax, and Kiwi shoe polish.

You can buy milk paint in powder form and mix it yourself. If you keep the paint powder in an airtight container, it will last longer. Extra-Bond can be used as a base for creating your own milk paint colors.

When applying paste wax, use a soft cloth. To polish, use a rough paper towel.

Dan spent some time talking about his use of Cave Paper, which everyone at the conference seemed to love (it was pretty fabulous). He applies the paper to wood and after painting the surface, it looks just like leather.

He crumples up the paper, opens it up, then crumples it up again. Repeating this process breaks up the gelatin sizing and creates random cracks in the paper’s surface.

He advised that using a weatherproof glue is preferable when applying the paper – he likes Titebond II because it has a good initial tack. When attaching the paper, get rid of the air bubbles, but keep the ridges.

The best part of the presentation was when Dan talked about the centipede binding (a.k.a. caterpillar binding). I have had mixed success with this binding and have been desperate to conquer it. He recommended that when plotting out the centipede’s path, keep it in a straight line. I think that this is what has been my downfall, getting too creative and curvy with my centipedes.

Dear Dan, that tip alone was worth the price of admission.

He said that the centipede binding was developed by Keith Smith in 1988. I’ve also heard references to Betsy Palmer Eldridge with regards to this binding. In order to avoid taking sides, I’m going to claim simultaneous development.

I’m still flabbergasted by the fact that I actually touched his work. My hands were on his books. See the books in these pictures? I touched them.

LOVED Dan’s presentation.

I’ve always wanted to take one of his classes and was thisclose to reaching my goal this past summer. Unfortunately, the class was canceled. Poo.

Mark my words, one day it will happen. Oh yes, it will happen.

Guild of Book Workers – Standards Seminar 2011

Last week I attended the Guild of Book Workers‘ Seminar on Standards of Excellence in Hand Bookbinding.

It was both inspiring and intimidating.

Don’t get me wrong – I had a wonderful time. I did, however, often wonder how exactly I ended up at the grown ups table.

Conference presenters included Dan Essig, Katherine Beaty, John DeMerritt, and Todd Pattison. I’ll talk about their presentations in future blog posts.

For now, I’ll just focus on the goodies. Oh yes, there was lots of shopping going on.

The first stop was Akkra. In a nutshell, these nice folks specialize in tools that don’t stick. I started off by purchasing two teflon burnishers – I’m looking forward to trying out these new shapes.

Then I picked up a teflon-coated spatula set. I’m not a big fan of picking glue boogers off of my tools.

The last purchase was a tweezer set. I’m really digging the soldering tweezers (the pair at the bottom of the image).

Next was a purchase from Colophon Book Arts Supply. I am now the proud owner of an 18″ Incra Precision T-Rule – I’ve been dying to get one of these since I attended the Focus on Book Arts conference earlier this year.

I bought two bookcloth sample books from Hiromi Paper. These books include samples that aren’t available from Talas. One book is for World Cloth (a.k.a. Asahi)…

…and the other is for Text Libris and Text Lifil.

The last thing I bought from Hiromi was some awesome apple papyrus from Germany. It’s a lot thinner and lighter than you’d expect. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it.

I bought the most amazing book from Bookbinders Workshop – The Exquisite Notes by Sylvia Ramos Alotta. I was told that this book was just released within the past few weeks.

The book is an instruction manual on bookbinding, presented in a sketchbook format – the sketches are so lovely! Techniques range from pamphlet stitch to the Armenian binding.

Last, but certainly not least, was the wonderful marbled paper from Chena River Marblers. I’ll be using these on a series of coptic journals, making their debut (hopefully) at my next craft show.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my tour of what emptied my wallet. Anyone want to help me put it away?

Wood Shop Basics with Susan Collard – Day 2

It seems that I am sufficiently recovered from my red eye flight home on Sunday night to write about my last day of the Focus on Book Arts conference.

Sunday was day 2 of Wood Shop Basics for the Book Artist with Susan Collard. I haven’t yet mentioned that Sue started working with wood via working with cardboard. This makes sense, considering that she works both as a book artist and an architect. Her written instructions reflect her dual vocations:

We started out with some free time to continue work from the previous day. I drilled circles into one page…

…then added veneer to another page to fill in unevenness at the top.

I loved working with the veneer. After gluing and clamping, I sanded it smooth and it was as if it had always been there.

I also worked on attaching a mirror. The holes you see in the mirror aren’t drilled through – I used my Dremel to remove the paint from the back of the mirror so I could reveal the glass underneath. Later in the day, I glued painted watercolor paper to the backside of the mirror and you can see the painting through the holes. I’ll show that to you in another blog post – perhaps when the book is completed.

By the way, this was the point at which I got a stupid Dremel injury. Note to self: Do not touch rapidly spinning Dremel parts with body parts.

After a bit, we reconvened and Sue showed us how to create a magnetic closure. We inset 1/4″ rare earth magnets into the wood frame of one of the pages and drilled a screw into the facing page to create the catch.

Next we learned about various ways to bind together wood pages. First was the stiff leaf binding, in which the pages are hinged together using bookcloth:

Next was the drum leaf binding, developed by Timothy Ely. In this binding, a pair of pages is joined together with a material such a bookcloth or Tyvek – this creates a folio. These folios are then glued together, back to back. If this doesn’t make sense, you can find instructions for the binding in the Fall 2004 issue (vol. 1, no. 1) issue of The Bonefolder.

Then we learned about the Mongolian Book, a Hedi Kyle binding inspired by a book from Mongolia she saw (many thanks to Andrew Huot for the details). This binding used one piece of Tyvek that was wrapped not only around the covers and spine, but also the top and bottom of the text block – it was one continuous piece. Each page is attached to the rest of the book with a thin strip of Tyvek.

 

After looking at her models, we learned the process we’d use for binding our wood pages – we used usu mino, a Japanese repair tissue.

Using one piece of tissue, you glue it to the back and spine of one page, then to the back of the neighboring page. You repeat this process for each pair of pages, creating folios in a manner similar to the drum leaf binding. When your folios are finished, you wrap tissue around the entire text block, gluing it to the front, spine, and back sides.

Once the text block was dry, we attached it to the covers. We glued our painted Tyvek to the spine of the text block. When that dried, we glued one end of the Tyvek to the inside of one of the covers, creating an end page. After that dried, we repeated the process with the other cover.

And that’s as far as I got. Other folks were able to do a lot of work on content, but I was slow. I decided that I was fine with finishing it up at home and just focused on enjoying the process as it was.

At the end of the day, Sue treated us to a personal look at her piece A Short Course in Recollection. The book had recently toured with the Guild of Book Workers exhibition Marking Time. When I saw the exhibit last November, I was only able to see the book inside a case – seeing the book in person (and in action) was a great treat.

The book includes ramps through which steel balls could travel. Here’s Sue showing us how it works:

The case for the book had slots on the outside in which the bottom of the book could rest. Brilliant.

I’m so glad I took this class. I feel like something in my creative brain shifted just a bit.

I’d like close this post with some inspiring words from Sue:

I’m not concerned about my bottom.

I guess you had to be there.

Wood Shop Basics with Susan Collard – Day 1

Today was day one of Wood Shop Basics for the Book Artist with Susan Collard. It involved much more physical activity than the past two days.

Sue has great energy, which seems to match my own. That is it matches my energy when I’m not jet-lagged and subjected to inferior coffee (I miss you Green Mountain Coffee Roasters).

I learned pretty quickly that one good rule to live by is to not do anything stupid. Don’t cut off your fingers. Don’t chisel towards another person. Don’t take the cool tools on the table and stick them in your pockets.

Sue started out by demonstrating how to use the tools and equipment needed to do the day’s work. In the past, I have never really been a master of the miter box. I now realize that I have to be more mindful about keeping the saw level and to make the cuts as I push the saw, not pull it.

We got to use this fabulous setup (manual miter saw) that was much easier to use than your run-of-the-mill miter box:

When you used it, it looked like you were shooting a bow and arrow. There was mucho cutting. By hand. People used to do that once.

First, we cut pages out of different thicknesses of wood – we used both plywood and poplar. Next, we cut up strips of oak to be used to add mitered frames to our pages.

I was having a complex about my inability to get my pages cut straight. I started with the self-flagellation – “What? You’re screwing up today too?” Ah, but then the culprit was revealed:

I was working with an injured miter box!

[self-blame ends here]

Lastly, we cut wood for the covers of our book – this was 1/2″ poplar.

Before I continue, I have to start the “I want that tool” roll call:

1. 4 ” Mini ratcheting bar clamps: This little peanut of a clamp seems to be able to get into all kinds of tight spaces. I already have a larger set of these at home, but I could definitely use these too.



2. 12-Inch Incra Rules Marking Rule: This thing is genius. You can mark off measurements in the integrated slots to help ensure accuracy. Measurements go down to 1/64″. And it’s flexible – you can use it to measure curved surfaces. Genius I say!

After our wood pieces were cut, we glued the mitered frame pieces onto one of our pages (yep, that’s a page):

Next we moved onto the construction of another page which used butt joints instead of mitered joints. There’s a small ledge in the middle of the page that will serve a purpose later – it involves a mirror.

We worked on more today than just wood – we got to play with color as we painted pieces of Tyvek and watercolor paper:

The paper and Tyvek will bring all of the wood pages together in an adhesive binding. The blue/wood block came from an old letterpress studio. I’m hoping to incorporate it in my book…I just need to figure out how.

Sue told us that we could mix together sawdust and wood glue to fill in the spaces in our joinery. I slathered it on and will sand it flush tomorrow – that’s why it looks like there’s natural peanut butter smeared on the corners of my pages.

I’m feeling itchy to get back to work tomorrow. I know what decorative elements to use, but I’m not sure if they’re all going to be doable. We’ll see…

And as has been the format of my last two posts, I will leave you with some awesome quotes:

Turn that liability into an asset, something that will make someone say, “Hey, that’s cool!”

You want to be able to hold a book.

The companion to Karen Hanmer’s “We have achieved end sheetitude”:

It lost its clampitude.

And the last quote, which may have actually come out of my mouth at some point in time:

If I don’t seem absurdly human by the end of this class…

Biblio Tech with Karen Hanmer – Day 2

I just finished day 2 of the Focus on Book Arts conference. I’m still jet-lagged and generally overstimulated. I think it was the opening night of the vendor fair that did me in – it included a reception with the biggest pile of angel food cake I’ve ever witnessed.

Today was day 2 of Biblio Tech with Karen Hanmer. We completed three more bindings: Laced-on Boards, Split Board Binding, and German Case (Bradel) Binding.

Unfortunately, I have to say that today was not one of my better binding days. I was the slowest person in the class and that’s not something I’m used to.

For the past two days, my hands have been off. It was after a conversation with Jill Timm that I realized that it’s likely due to the Dremel work I did earlier this week on my found object book (post coming soon) – I think the bamboo cutting did a number on my hands. Thankfully, I was able to complete all of today’s projects – Karen is a very patient teacher.

When I arrived at my workstation, I was greeted by a peanut of a sewing frame (loved the postcard):

We dove right into the sewing, using cords as supports. The image of Karen’s demonstration should give you a sense of just how small the sewing frame was (hence the peanut comment):

After the sewing was completed, we MacGyvered the sewing frame into a backing-ish press:

And thus began the great rounding and backing fail:

By the time I got to the backing hammer, the PVA on the spine was too dry and I couldn’t get the spine to behave.

It’s a learning experience…it’s a learning experience…

Here are some shots of the completed book:

Yesterday I forgot to mention that every time we started a new book, we got a goodie bag full of all the necessary supplies:

As you may have guessed, the next binding was the Split Board Binding, which started off in a similar way as the previous binding (using linen tapes instead of cords):

The cover is made with two layers of board – you create a pocket when you glue three edges together. Then you make a stub using paper from your text block by folding it in half towards the spine and gluing it. The stub slides into the pocket in the cover and you glue it in.

I hope this makes sense – I did my best to take pictures that helped to illustrate the technique:

And thus began the great rounding and backing fail. Oh wait, I already said that. But it happened again. Glue too dry, spine won’t round, blah, blah, blah…

It’s a learning experience…it’s a learning experience…

Here’s the finished model (you can slide one of the pocket cover thingies off to see how it’s put together):

Then on to the last book of the day – German Case Binding. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures during the binding process. I chalk it up to end-of-the-day fatigue. And jet lag. And while we’re at it, global warming.

We started off by doing a double fan adhesive binding. I enjoyed this more than thought. I think that I’m just easily amused by fanning pages. We then created a case using bookcloth and cased in the text block.

And here’s the final product:

As you can see, there’s a space between the spine edge and the text block – that’s why it was important that we avoided getting PVA on the spine edge when casing in.

I feel like I’ve eaten 3 ginormous bookbinding meals for the past two days. I’m excited to start a new class tomorrow.

But before I go, I’ll leave you with some more wise words from Karen:

You can train yourself to be accurate enough.

We have achieved end sheetitude.

And my personal favorite -

When you are with me, I am the only book artist in the world.

Remember that dry sense of humor I told you about?

Biblio Tech with Karen Hanmer – Day 1

I just finished my first day at the 2011 Focus on Book Arts conference.

I am so very tired – here’s the math: Elissa + 3.5 hour flight delay = getting to the conference at 2:30 a.m. Many thanks to the magical power of caffeine.

Today was day 1 of a 2-day workshop with Karen Hanmer – Biblio Tech: Reverse Engineering Historical and Modern Binding Structures. The focus of our work was on board attachment.

I have to tell you – Karen is a riot. She has this really dry sense of humor that’s right up my alley. She also has a very human presence, meaning that she doesn’t have that “you’re in the presence of greatness” air. Of course, she is pretty great.

Karen started out the class by passing around around 2 dozen cutaway models of historical and modern bindings:

I took pictures of most of the bindings, but I’ll save those for another post.

We completed three bindings today: Tacketing, Crossed Structure, and Sewn Boards (Gary Frost).

Tacketing started with folding 20 sheets of paper into one mega-signature – this made for a very boingy book. Someone has a date with a press when he gets home:

It was a pretty straightforward binding. Inside the signatures were little pieces of leather called stays – the stitches went through the stays to the outside of the book when sewing the signatures to the leather cover.

Here are some shots of the outside of the completed book:

Next we worked on the Crossed Structure binding. I really enjoyed this one and I can totally see myself doing it again.

Here’s Karen doing a demonstration for the class:

Lastly, we worked on the Sewn Boards structure. I’m embarrassed to admit that until today, I never knew that this stitching was known as the French Link. I’m not sure if others would agree, but I think it looks elegant.

After attaching the text block to the covers, we attached only part of the end paper so you could see how it looked underneath. I am already appreciating how useful these models will be in the future.

And the finished book (it doesn’t look that exciting when closed):

I’m really looking forward to my second day! I’ll leave you with Karen’s super quote of the day:

Bookbinding is an interesting combination of measure, measure, measure, measure, slap it down and hope for the best.

Worktable Wednesday

Yeah…I was up late last night.

I waited until the last minute to finish my entry for the Bamboozled contest and soon after that began Insane Conference Packing 2011. As you can guess, 1:21 a.m. is not the best time of day for thoughtful packing.

And things didn’t get less chaotic after having slept for several hours…different crap, same worktable.

Thankfully, I did manage to get everything packed up. I had to pack all of my bookbinding supplies in my suitcase as X-Acto knives don’t make the cut (snicker) with airport security. I put labels on everything so they’d know what was in the bags.

And here I am in Newark, miles away from my worktable. I’m excited for the first day of the conference tomorrow!

Worktable Wednesday

So this is what’s on my table today (click on the image to enlarge):

I’m going to the Focus on Book Arts conference in a week. This will be my third time attending and it’s also the third time I’ve faced the Found Object Book Activity. I’ve never attempted it before, but this year I’m going to give it a shot.

I think the Book Arts Improv helped to increase my comfort level with randomness – and here it is – a bunch of random:

I have to use at least five of these items in my book. I might also incorporate some scraps of bamboo flooring – we had a bunch left over from when we installed it on the third floor of our house.

I found a quote by Bruce Lee that I really like (yes, that Bruce Lee). I might use it as my inspiration for the book.

I’ll show you the (hopefully) completed book after I return from the conference. Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

Vermont Crafts Council Spring Marketing Conference 2010

Yesterday, for the third year in a row, I presented at the Vermont Crafts Council’s Spring Marketing Conference. This year I presented on two different topics -Social Media for Artists and Etsy for Beginners.

I.am.so.tired.

I think actually out-talked my mouth. I didn’t know that was possible. Seriously though, I had such an awesome time.

It seemed like there was a lot of fun in the room this time. I managed to stumble onto a doozy of a blooper. While talking about Etsy, I meant to say “You can keep your favorites private.” It came out as “You can keep your favorite privates.” As soon as I heard myself say it, I just put my head down on the table because I knew I was in for it. And let me say this – if someone else had done the same, I would have laughed just as hard. But you know what, it was so worth it.

I get really anxious before doing presentations and a good laugh can help break the tension for me. Now I’m thinking about how I can better structure a technology workshop like a comedy sketch.

So here’s a big howdy to any of those folks who came to my blog after attending either of my workshops. If you ever have any more questions, feel free to contact me. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I like to talk.

Today is your last chance to enter my Hedi Kyle Festschrift giveaway – you have until midnight EST tonight. If you’re on the fence about entering the giveaway, then maybe this will change your mind – the book is a lovely shade of orange and you know you don’t have enough orange books. This will fill the void in your library. Enter now.

Good luck!