Repairing a book

Just before I finished Lola a friend asked me if I could rebind his book for him.  I said yes of course, but did warn him that I would be busy for the next month and he would have to wait.  The answer - no problem.  

After a weeks work it is done and I have to say I am very happy with the end result.  I hope he is too.

A well loved book

Using paste to remove the old binding

The new cover

Corners

Waiting for the paste to set

A new lease of life

The first project

Today I made a start on my first real project since I finished studying with the OU.
I need to repair a friends book but to do this I need some starch paste.  I haven't made any for years but luckily I'd made a note of the recipe from 2008 - it came out perfect.  
Tomorrow I'll get repairing...

The Electric Tooling Iron

For my birthday this year I was lucky enough to receive an Electric Tooling Iron.  This is a tool that book binders use for marking their books with metallic foils or for marking directly onto leather.  It might be words or just decoration.  Below is an example of how you would use it. 

First you need to know what you are using it for.  In this case I have traced the title of one of my favourite books, which has a beautiful title font.  I would do this if I was repairing the book and going to replace the cover.

First the metallic foil needs to be stuck to the new cover with masking tape.  It must be perfectly flat. 

The tracing is then placed over the foil.  Using the iron, once it is hot enough, you trace the design onto your book.  This takes a little practice as you can't hold it as close to the tip as you would a normal pen.  It doesn't matter too much if you need to go back over it as long as your design doesn't move half way through.

The finished design.  If I had another coloured foil I could go over it again as long as it was lined up right.
This is a great tool and I look forward to having some more practice with it.

Christmas Bookbinding Books

I should have blogged about this pair of books last year, but what with essays about Peter Pan and days with the family I didn’t get the chance.
For Christmas my mum very kindly bought me Vol 1 Non-Adhesive Binding, Books without Paste or Glue by Keith Smith and Bookcraft by Heather Weston.
I’d been hoping for Smith’s book, as I’d seen some of his other volumes while doing the bookbinding evening class and was fascinated by the idea that you can bind a book without any glue (something I have tried but not very successfully).
Weston’s book I hadn’t seen before, but it’s a really nice collect of easy to follow techniques, not just for binding but folding and decorating books, and examples – perfect for getting ideas going.
I look forward to trying lots of new techniques out, although I might get my essays finished first.

Bible Repairs

On Christmas Day, while we digested the huge lunch ‘im outdoor’s Nan had cooked us, we somehow got onto talking about her Bible and how the cover had come off. It looked like quite a simple repair to me, so I offered to take it home and rebind it for her.
It was only when I got home that I thought – What am I doing!?! This is her Bible – quite an important book in her eyes!
But I made up some paste, removed the tatty bits that were still attached and made a new cover.
I’m really pleased with the end result, all it needs is the title in gold on the spine, but I don’t have the means to do that at the moment. Maybe one day.
I hope she likes it, I’ll find out on Sunday when ‘im outdoors takes it over to her.