Category: bookbinding

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SPRING 2022, ONLINE WORKSHOP: MAKING DELRIN AND BAMBOO TOOLS FOR CONSERVATION AND BOOKBINDING

The ability to make and modify tools adds considerably to a conservators’ arsenal.

Making tools is not only engaging and fun, but entirely practical since the result is set of tools you can use daily. Book conservators, photo conservators, paper conservators, bookbinders, and others will find this workshop valuable. Filing, scraping and polishing are meditative activities, no previous experience required. Working Delrin and bamboo is a great way to start toolmaking and we will make folders, lifting tools, microspatulas, hera, creasing tools, tongs and more. This workshop will give you confidence in maintaining and altering your existing tools for specific needs. Give yourself the gift of learning and with some new tools and tool making skills that will keep on giving for the rest of your career! Fair warning: making your own tools is highly addictive!

OVERVIEW : All aspects of making tools with delrin and bamboo will be discussed in detail: design considerations, thinking through working procedures, cutting, filing, rough shaping, final shaping, and polishing. The workshop consists of two 3- hour synchronous zoom sessions with PPTs, videos, discussion of handouts, demonstrations, Q&A chat sessions, and working together. Also included is two week access to the workshop website, which contains information, links, videos and PPTs. The workshop includes a kit with enough materials to make nine tools with a retail value over $300. A set of hand tools to make the tools is also included: a cherry bench hook, scraper, burnisher, a file for plastics, and a variety of sanding and polishing supplies.  You need a stable work surface, some time to work, a few basic hand tools, and an interest in making tools.

SCHEDULE: Two 3-hour sessions on Saturdays for each workshop. Three sections of the workshop will be offered three times. February 12 + 19, March 11 + 19, and April 9 + 16.  12-3pm Pacific,  1-4pm Mountain, 2-5pm Central, 3-6pm Eastern, 8-11pm GMT, 9-12 CET, 10 – 1am EET, 5am – 8am (+ 1 day) JST, 6am – 9am ( +1 day) UTC

DOMESTIC REGISTRATION: https://www.peacheytools.com/shop/online-workshop-making-delrin-and-bamboo-tools

INTERNATIONAL REGISTRATION: Email me for an invoice to pay by credit card. I will hold your place for 24 hours after sending an invoice. Up to 3 kits can be shipped together for the shipping price of one. I am currently unable to ship to Australia and New Zealand, but contact me if you would like to be on a notification list.

COST: $390 US ($440 Canada, $465 EU and other countries, includes shipping)

CANCELATION POLICY: If you cancel before the kits are shipped there is a $100 fee, and no refunds after kits are shipped.

I hope to see many of you there!

Some possibilities for tools, though students are encouraged to work on their own designs.
I never thought I’d really like a plastic, but Delrin is special.
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An Investigation of Seventeenth Century English Bookbinding Tools in Randle Holme’s  “Academy of Armory” to be presented at The Guild of Book Workers Standards of Excellence 2021 Online Conference October 9

I’m making great progress on my bookbinding tool presentation. But I need a longer title….

Randle Holme’s 1688 Academy of Armory contains the only known images of seventeenth century English bookbinding tools. It has been almost forgotten in bookbinding literature, and wasn’t included in Pollard and Potter’s standard reference, Early Bookbinding Manuals: An Annotated List of Technical Accounts of Bookbinding to 1840. Holme describes six essential tools: a folder, a beating hammer, a needle, a sewing frame, a lying press, and a plough. The relationship between actual books of the time and the tools used to make them will be explored in this presentation. A demonstration of reproduction folding sticks — and a discussion of the difficulties in deciphering extant evidence of them — will end the session.

It only costs $79 to attend the entire conference. This includes the opening reception for the WILD/LIFE exhibition, Peter Verheyen on fish-skin in bookbinding, Karen Hanmer on an even more simplified binding, Radha Pandey on Indo-Islamic papermaking, and a roundtable discussion on exhibiting books. I hope to see some familiar faces there, in little squares.

Register here for this online event!

If you can’t attend the conference, or are thirsting for more information concerning Randle Holme and 17th c. bookbinding tools, an article will soon be published in The New Bookbinder 41.

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New Tool for Sale! Fraying Shield

A stainless steel fraying shield of my design. There is not a standard term for these in English, but they are called Aufschabeblech in German.

I’d seen versions of tools like this fraying shield (sometimes called a fraying plate) for a couple of decades. Some are just a simple “V” cut into a pressing tin thickness piece of metal. Why bother, I thought? Who needs another specialized, single purpose tool for such a simple job? I’ve been fraying out the cords on scrap pieces of binders board or card stock just fine.

But recently Peter Verheyen engaged me to design and make one for him. He details some historic ones and has a video of him using this one in this blog post. I became intrigued by some of the subtleties of this simple tool. Once I had a prototype I liked, I had a familiar, nagging feeling. Why the hell didn’t I do this sooner? Even if you don’t buy this one, I urge you to make one for yourself and see!

Fraying out test. Check out the fluffy, evenly thinned slips!

The speed of fraying is quicker, and the quality of the resulting slips much better than using binders board or card stock. They are very even and it is easier to control how thin they get. This is due to fraying on a hard and flat surface, rather than an irregular surface that abrades. The thinness of the steel helps too, so that you can start fraying just next to where the cord exits the endsheet. The shield itself is made from an unhardened stainless steel, soft enough that it won’t damage your knife blade. Traditionally, though, the back of your knife is used. So far it has worked with all the different plys of linen cord I’ve tried, from 2 to 12. The stainless steel is also safe for contact with binding materials.

Fraying shield. Stainless steel, 2 x 6 inches. Buy it here, introductory price only $25!