#re-binding

I had this book plucked and re-bound in a curved double fan binding months ago, but slowly it's coming together enough for a post. First obstacle (aside from picking a cover design, which I have not done yet, but I have ideas) was the endpaper. The Lokta paper I picked has a pretty design (called tulip for reasons I can not discern no matter which way I look at it, but tulip it is). The only issue I keep having with Lokta paper is the wide range of paper thickness in one sheet. Because of that, and because I did not like how the backside of the paper looked, I decided to back the paper completely to add strength to the thinner parts and cover the backside of the base.

This lead to adding another sheet of coloured paper to ease the reader into the rather grey printing paper instead of having a harsh break. (Also because I wanted an extra sheet of paper before the book started. I hate to open a book and having the title smashed into my face first page).

It's also been a while since I've sewn endbands so I chose to sew them on this book despite the whole thing being meant to be a quick low-effort bind (I'm doing really well making choices that keep them low effort as you may have noticed.) Despite a double fan binding not haveing sections to anchor your endband in you can work around that! One can still sew through the glued spine and even have some sort of anchoring point when the spine has some mull or gauze. To make it easier I usually use a cloth wrapped-pre-made-glue-on sort of endband to sew around. The endband doesn't really need anchoring points then, but I still add them at the beginning and the end to secure my threads and make sure the ends stay neatly on the spine. The glued on core makes things much easier and faster here. On the downside this cheat only works for bead on the edge endbands (no flimsy moving around cores though, which I like very much).

inner book mass produced paper back of Midgard bugra bütten paper, endpapers gilded leather, endbands acrylic paint, coloured edge leaf gold (ducate double gold 23 carat), gilded edge

Materials used:

cover binders board (1,5mm) bookcloth (uncoated) velours paper (inlay, laser printed) cover and spine title hotstamped inner book original paperback copy coloured paper with gold applications (endpapers) book companion: Postcard ‘Monet’s Berth’ white photo board, laser printed with picture of Monet’s View of Bordighera, retro print of an italian postcard), edges worn and dusted for ‘wear’

Materials used:

case: binders board (1mm and 0,5mm) book cloth (self made) cork coated cloth spine title: heat stamped

Here are some detail shots of my latest re-bind. I worked with a couple of unfamiliar materials and lets say, I made a lot of new experiences.

I already mentioned in the WIP posts, the book cloth was self made. I pre-washed the cotton fabric and used thin paper and wheat paste glue to back it. Sadly the wheat paste was not strong enough to hold firm at the hinge. This I only found out after it was completely finished, when training the book. (naturally it shows on the front side of course).

I considered taking a syringe and injecting some glue into the loose pocket, but finally decided against it. The loose cloth there is an aestethic flaw, not one of integrity. I’m fairly certain I’d end up with glue stains pressing through and still some loose cloth if I tried it and decided to save me the pain. As for the self-made cloth, I’ll see how the next book turns out before making more bookcloth now. See, how the different fabrics are to work with first. 

The cloth also gave me quite some trouble when hot stamping the title on it. Originally I planned on titling in copper, but for some reason the foil would not adhere to it. I increased, pressure, temperature, stamping time, but nothing got me satisfactory results. Then I tried stamping in black and that went without any trouble. On the first go I got crisp and clean lines with no blank patches at all.   

I considered getting creative and use the black as a base colour and simply stamp copper on top (usually that actually works). It did not work though. The copper still came out mostly patchy

It has a certain grunge look to it. But I decided against it in the end.

As for the corkcloth. The turn ins were a bit of a hustle to glue down, but I’m quite satisfied with the result. It gave me no crisp edges, but they do look clean and neat, no air pockets under them and the corners turned out really well, the fix is even hard to see when knowing there is one. Also the cork feels like it’s really lenient when it comes to stains and, something I like a lot, it has a warm feeling when holding it. Even leather feels cool in comparison.

Lastly, I noticed I didn’t even show off those endpapers. I had the hole sheet sitting in my stack for years now and never knew what to use it for. When I made it did not consider it a success, simply for the large blank patches and the brownish red colour that looked a bit weird in contrast (this was another ‘hm I imagined that to turn out different’-moment). The blank areas don’t even look like there’s something lacking here though.

materials used:

This time I’m re-binding a perfect bound book for a friend. Usually I wouldn’t take a rather new book apart. Here the binding had broken in a couple of places and glue seeped deep between the pages in others. It already showed where the pages would take damage within a few readings.

So first I got rid of the cover and there was still a thick and sticky layer of glue on the spine.

I started out with the first page that came off easily. The following pages were getting harder and harder to get off though. So what I do is using my bone folder, or sometimes the back my knife (the bone folder is the safe option and less likely to damage the pages though), to push the glue firmly down and away from the pages.

Plucking a book like this can take a moment depending on how sound the binding is in general. With this book I had to repeat pushing down the glue every 2-3 pages. A good moment to do that is, when the pages are getting harder to pull off. So before tearing a page it’s better to do another round of pushing the glue down so it looks like this again. (You can actually see the roughed up spine side being exposed on the top page.

In the end there’s often the layer of glue with some paper fibers still sticking to out and the text block, that will still have some residue glue on the pages.

I admit, I’m rebinding this book partially because I really don’t like the cover of the paperback and partially because I really want to use that printed cork fabric. Finding a good colour to stand out but not too harshly was a bit of a stretch when I checked the commercial bookcloth I had. Luckily I went on bookcloth spree a few weeks back and have a few options more now. I might go back and check for a totally different colour tomorrow though. Picking endpapers that would not clash with the colours and print of the cork was difficutl too (because I tend to be very indecisive) but eventually I decided for a colour gradient. I don’t like how paperback just start with the book no warming up at all. So I added a few more to ease into the book and get a nicer transition between endpaper and (aged) text paper. Initially I had third paper there, but it did nothing for the fading so I decided against it.