book conservation – Page 2 – Peachey Conservation

August 13, 2024

Conservation Hand Tools: Making, Modifying, and Maintaining. Upcoming Toolmaking Workshop. Emory University, October 7-11, 2024

For dust free Delrin finishing, we will use a cabinet scraper and wet sand.

Conservation Hand Tools: Making, Modifying, and Maintaining

Workshop Description

Most interventive conservation treatments are mediated through hand tools. Many of these tools had their origins in particular craft traditions; but conservators often modify them for particular uses. Tools become embodied in use, extensions of a conservator’s hand, sense of touch, and intention. Personal hand tools often become prized arrows in a conservator’s quiver.

This five day workshop emphasizes simple and safe methods of working hardened tool steel, stainless steel, Delrin, wood, and bamboo. Progressively more difficult techniques will be introduced during the week using primarily hand tools. This workshop will be tool-centric; for example, hand sawing — with the appropriate blade and technique — will be used for all the materials introduced. Choosing materials appropriate to the desired task will be emphasized. Possibilities include tools for cutting, folding, prying, delaminating, lifting, scraping, and burnishing.

Participants will complete a number of tools of their own design during this workshop. Examples of common existing tools — such as delaminating or lifting tools — will be provided as prompts. One goal is to free participants from the plethora of misinformation and mystique that surrounds knife sharpening, and learn fundamental freehand techniques applicable to any edge tool. Another is to gain competence in mechanical problem solving and practical hand tool use. Participants are encouraged to bring their own tools for discussion, possible modification, and repair.

Making tools is engaging, fun, and useful. It is also highly addictive. Consider yourself warned.

Workshop topics

• Basic tool use for stock reduction: sawing, filing, abrading, scraping, drilling, tapping

• Understanding what makes something sharp, efficient hand sharpening

• Tool design and mechanical thinking in general

• Making a high carbon, M2 tool steel knife by stock reduction

• Differences and similarities in shaping Delrin, Wood, Bamboo, and steel

• Tool handles, sheaths, and handle ergonomics

• Connoisseurship of vintage tools and tool maintenance

• Safe use of power tools

Please join us for an intensive toolmaking week at Emory University October 7-11, 2024!

Some new Delrin spatula shapes I’ve been experimenting with.

December 11, 2023December 11, 2023

Just Published! “The Binder’s Curse: John Bradford and Early Nineteenth Century American Bookbinding” in Suave Mechanicals Vol. 8, The Legacy Press, 2023.

The Binder’s Curse: John Bradford and Early Nineteenth Century American Bookbinding, in Suave Mechanicals 8, The Legacy Press, 2023, 387 – 457.

“Keep Dark. Can’t Tell” With these four words, 19th century NYC bookbinder John Bradford begins an extraordinary book of bookbinding related poetry and imaginative parody. Written records from craftsmen during this time are very uncommon. Writings from bookbinders are very, very uncommon.

Bradford’s well-known poem, The Binder’s Curse, contains an introduction which places it in the context of a trade dispute, which is not so well known. The full title of the book gives a hint at Bradford’s wacky worldview: The Poetical Vagaries of the Knight of the Folding-Stick of Paste-Castle and The History of the Garrett, &c. &c., Translated from the Hieroglyphics of the Society, by a Member of the Order of the Blue String, Printed for the Author, [New York], 1815. The title is not just poetic exaggeration; part of the text consists of — supposedly — translated and untranslated hieroglyphics.

“This world’s a huge bindery…” Bradford proclaims, decades before Mallarmé’s more famous dictum, that everything in the world exists to end up as a book.¹ Bradford constantly reinforces this world-as-bindery cosmology: Did this guy ever think about anything but bookbinding? Yet these poems provides primary documentation of bookbinding techniques and tools: the first mention of a squaring shears, details of which tools the binder owns (Bradford was a journeyman his entire career) and which the master provided, the use of templates, and more. There is a lot of serious bookbinding history buried in his poems.

There are also less serious aspects, like some really cringey love poetry. “Her forehead is like a paste bowl / And smooth as a fine paring stone.” Anyone want to guess what body part is “white as wheat paste”?

Bradford gives us a sense of the working life of an early nineteenth century binder, including day-to-day annoyances, and trade politics, all written with his relentlessly quirky sense of humor. The poem “Receipt for binding a book” consists of the earliest comprehensive listing of the steps in American binding, which is analyzed in depth by comparing it with extant bindings and relevant bookbinding manuals of the day. Bradford’s poems provide a insight into an imaginative bookbinder working on the cusp mechanization, especially dealing with the importance of tool ownership and use.

Thanks to editor Julia Miller and publisher Cathy Baker of the Legacy Press. And congrats to all the other authors below! I can’t wait to read the other essays. Available soon from Oak Knoll Press.

KEEP DARK

DO NOT attempt this curse at home! Provided for informational purposes only. The beginning of “The Binder’s Curse” from *The Poetical Vagaries of the Knight of the Folding-Stick*…. 1815.

Malarmé, “Les Livre, Instrument Spirituel,” Quant au livre, 1895. ↩︎

May 24, 2023May 25, 2023

The Weighty Wedge

There are dozens of book wedges on the market; the Weighty Wedge is intended for book conservators to use during treatments. It conveniently holds books open in a variety of positions. At 1.9 pounds, or 850 grams, the steel base stays put, and the friction hinge is easily adjustable with one hand from 90 degrees to almost flat. The Volara lined contact surfaces are safe for contact with artifacts and easily replaceable if they become soiled.

These wedges are useful when working on the insides of books for page repair, board edge consolidation and sewing extensions. They can be used to support books open when measuring for display cradles, photography, examination, etc.

Size: Average 4 x 2 x 2 inches. Materials: Steel, Delrin, and Volara. Weight: Average 1.9 pounds or 850 grams. One wedge per order.

$150 each. Order here!