#book repairs

The Balance Between Retaining the History of And Restoration of A Book - Carte Des Voyages De Cook

It is an endless argument about the repair and restoration versus preserving as much of the original history of the book. Often I ask myself, as well as being asked by others, what are my principles behind how I approach the books that I restore.

The utmost important aspect of restoration for me is the integrity of the binding. As a book, it has to function for it to be handled and enjoyed by the owner. The boards have to be attached to the text block, firmly and effectively functional, and the spine to hold the pages well.

My next most important aspect is to be sympathetic to the history of the book. I will remove as little of the original as possible, determining what is affecting the book and needs to be removed. The repairs that I do are completely reversible, giving support while blending with the overall look of the book.

The 7 Kilogrammes Behemoth

When I first laid my eyes on this book, the muscles in my arms were cowering in fright. This would mean a lot of heavy lifting and moving as gently as possible. A giant book also needs to be treated delicately. 

Even though this book only required minor repairs, there was a huge long tear in the middle of the book that was not detected during my primary observation in the presence of the client. It was only during the routine sweep down of every page that I discovered it. 

Using Japanese kozo tissue, I repaired the tear, and over the parts that had text, I used pulled kozo fibres to bridge the tear. 

The book’s front tipped on endpaper was also detached, and with that, I used a strip of Japanese kozo tissue to first support the joint, and then I tipped on the endpaper again.

There was a small damage on the leather on the front cover and I used a toned Japanese kozo tissue to hinge it back. A light polish using an agate polishing stone brought it to shine like the rest of the leather. 

A Special Gift from a Son to his Mother

Whenever I receive enquires about the rebinding of broken bibles, I often encourage my customers to look for any patterned fabric that they like, or a piece of clothing that they do not wear anymore but wish to have it around as a keepsake. For her birthday, my customer decided to give his mother’s bible a repair and a makeover. 

The material for the covers was cut from the back of a shirt that belongs to my customer, and the tail edge of the shirt was used to create pockets on the paste-downs of the endpapers. The initials “A.L.” is a beige Harmatan goat leather onlay, and it was adjusted to fit between the dots on the cloth.

William The Conqueror

Some books do not need to have high monetary value to be deemed as worthy of repairs and restoration. Some books have sentimental values that far exceeds the value of money.

William The Conqueror by Richmal Crompton belongs to my customer. It is the last of three books he brought to me for repairs. Once again, quick convenient repairs using tape has caused some damage to the already broken book. The tape caused discolouration of the book cloth and the paper. Along with the removal, some fibres were also removed inevitably.

The sections were taken apart, and some of the folios were guarded, and then the textblock was resewn before it was re-cased. A new spine piece with a supporting book cloth hinge was inserted under the original book cloth and a hollow was added to support the spine. 

The Restoration of The Pickwick Papers

Most times when books get inherited, they tend to come in all sorts of conditions. They were loved by their owners, who tried with their limited knowledge, fix them when they are broken. 

The Pickwick Papers is a beautiful book with hand coloured plates. It was however, at the bad end of an attempt in repair, using cloth tape, some many decades ago. 

The tape has already lost its tack, and what came out of it was brittle blue dust and a strip of cloth. Most of the adhesive has hardened into a powder and had to be carefully scraped out with a blunt palette knife. 

From Perfect to Proper

Whenever I hear the description of a perfect binding, I cringe. Because it is not perfect in whatsoever way. If you search on Google what perfect binding is, it is described as “Perfect Binding is a widely used soft cover book binding method. With this binding method, the pages and cover are glued together at the spine with a strong yet flexible thermal glue. The other three sides of the book are then trimmed as needed to give them clean “perfect” edges.” Yes, perfect edges, but the binding is terrible and is definitely nothing near perfect. The flaws of this binding technique is that, this “strong yet flexible thermal glue” will one day harden, and become brittle and eventually crack. This will make the book into a notepad, where the pages will come off in sheets or in chunks. 

It is very common that I get requests to repair books that are made this way. Especially bibles, because they are used very heavily, and with its thickness and extremely soft pages, the structure will not be able to withstand and the spine eventually breaks. 

My way of approaching this is to change it from a perfect binding to what I deem as proper binding for single sheets textblock. The spine is sawn into, and a cord is placed in the groove to hold the pages. Instead of a thermal glue, I use a water-based PVA which takes a while to dry, but it also is flexible. For such spines, the support is very important. Spine linings are layers of material added to support the spine so that it supports the book as it is opened and flexed. A strong spine lining like Jaconette is very suitable for such instances. I chose a German Bradel binding method because it is very hardy and is close enough to a library-style binding which is designed to withstand hard use. 

The Repair and Restoration of “A History of Malaya”

Most times, books like these often go unnoticed in a library, with its dirty mustard colour, plain and simple gold stamping and very badly sun damaged spine.

But this book is considered a rare item in a library, and it holds very important information about the history of our neighbour, Malaya, or today, known as Malaysia. Perhaps this was not a rare print during its production, but most likely, over time, and how this book was deemed as a utility item, a lot of it was probably lost. Most likely sold off for recycling or the “karang guni” man, endearingly known as the man who comes every week to collect items to be recycled.

This book, like most of the books I saw in the collection, had a thick layer of what I think is shellac over the covering material. It gives the yellow cloth cover a very dirty brown look, a weird shine and very brittle at the hinges. I tried to remove as much of the shellac as I could without removing the colour of the cloth. The dye in the cloth might also react and it might lose the yellow pigments in the cleaning process. 

I made a new spine piece, hinged the boards back with toned Jaconette and toned it to match the original cloth. The corners are consolidated and the hinge on the endpapers are repaired using Japanese kozo and left untoned. 

Au Iles Sous Le Vent Tahiti - A Paperback Restoration

One of the difficulties of repairing a paperback made in the early 20th century is the condition of the paper. It is often very yellow, brittle and crumbly. This copy of Au Iles Sous Le Vent Tahiti is not in that terrible of a condition, but it will continue to deteriorate over time. This is one of the books that tells me that I need to upgrade my skills and possibly offer conservation services to my customers too.

This book has not been read yet, and the pages are left uncut from the printers. The are folded in sections but not trimmed. During the late 19th century and early 20th century, a lot of books were sold like this, and the reader has to use a letter opener to cut open each page. Sometimes I see books that are very neatly cut at the beginning and then very roughly torn at the back. I suspect it has to do with how eager the reader is to find out the ending.