mutton thumper

Hello to all my new followers! I don't know what happened this weekend to make my blog so popular, but I'm glad you guys are all here enjoying bookbinding goodness. 

For three of the four days last week (it was a short week due to Columbus day... gotta love fake holidays!) Jeff Peachey was in the bindery to teach us how to make our own bookbinding knives. In the days leading up to the workshop, Jeff (Altepeter) and the second years warned the first years that it would be a LONG three days. It would be hard. There literally would be blood, sweat and tears, they all said (all but the latter truthfully happened). 

Here's the thing: I actually really enjoyed these three days. They were certainly exhausting, and I definitely dreaded the first time I would have to use a power tool to alter a freaking METAL OBJECT, but it was such a fantastic opportunity to learn an valuable and rarely taught skill that I couldn't imagine doing anything but diving in full-force. And, of course, I took each success and failure with a heaping grain of salt (and as a result successfully avoided any tears!).  

I liked that the process required the same (and maybe an even greater) attention to detail and taste for repetition that bookbinding does. To make the knives, we started with hacksaw blades of various sizes, ground off the paint and serrated edge with a buffer, split the blade in half, and then used a sanding belt to grind each piece down to a 13° point. Figuring out how to place the blade flush with the belt, so that the point would be ground down evenly, was hard. Until our hands became used to the process, we all found ourselves struggling with uneven and jagged blades. 

After the 13° point was successfully achieved, we then took the blades to a sharpening system which Jeff Peachey helped us make. A more cost-effective alternative to water or oil stones, the system uses two aluminum blocks to which we can attach adhesive sheets of 80, 40, 15, and 5 micron grits. After taking the knives through each stage, we finish on a strop covered in a buffing compound. I found the sharpening process to be extremely satisfying. As I developed my eye, I could see (and feel) the knife becoming sharper through each stage. And there's nothing quite like the satisfaction of sliding your very own handmade knife through a piece of leather as if it were butter! 

Even though my hands are still recovering from last week (but I do still have all ten digits!), I am so thankful for the experience. I came away with 5 sharp knives of various types, and, maybe more importantly, the ability to keep them sharp! Jeff (Altepeter) told us at the end of the workshop that handmade knives are special because the movements you make while taking the metal through each stage of the process means that, in the end, you have a tool that really only responds perfectly to your own unique way of using your hands. Pretty neat! 

L to R: English style paring knife, two round Powell style lifting knives, another English style paring knife, and a rounded Swiss or French style knife. 

Shameless Plug:

Spent a good portion of today playing with paste paper.

Can't wait to see how they dry on Monday!

Made a few mini books with the copious amount of scraps that I produce each day. 

My first successful attempt at a half binding! I'm so happy with this one. The corners are mostly even, I cased it in well, and I got to use this AWESOME paste paper that I made. 

Made my first batch of brain paste with Martha, our resident conservation guru. 

A stack of case bindings... don't look too closely. They're not very good. 

I have almost completed one week of class at North Bennet Street School. I am exhausted. My fingers hurt from being stabbed too many times with needles. There isn't any air conditioning and the new building and the past two days have been over 90. But I am loving my life right now! I'm completely confident that I made the right decision to move to Boston and start life as a professional bookbinder. 

First of all: I am completely inspired by my fellow classmates. We all have such varied backgrounds/levels of education and reasons for arriving at NBSS. I know I will learn so much from them. I'm looking forward to that and to developing that special camaraderie that only happens when small groups get together to geek out over really quirky things. 

We've been doing some really basking link/coptic stitches this week. The link stitch I had already learned, but it was good to re-learn it. I'm already picking up new techniques and feeling more comfortable with my sewing.  I thought I had done coptic bindings before, but what I had thought was coptic was actually a link stitch... my mind is constantly being blown. I feel like I know next to nothing about anything. I have SO much to learn about the history of binding, terminology, materials, tools..... the list is endless. 

What is comforting, though, is that my lack of formal knowledge doesn't really matter. I am good with my hands and like this work. The rest will follow!

I am still bookbinding, and still going to NBSS in the fall (err...starting this Monday!). The lack of posts was due to the fact that the basement in which I had been working this summer flooded in a biblical storm, leaving me with no place to work. Ohhh the joys that life can bring. I moved to Boston last Monday and have been slowly beginning to settle into my new life here. I think I'm going to like it!

So what I came here to say was that, come Monday, you can expect me to begin posting much more regularly! Orientation is Monday, classes start Tuesday, and there will be oh so much bookbinding goodness to take pictures of and talk about. 

Don't give up on me yet!

I AM GOING TO GO TO SCHOOL FOR BOOKBINDING.