Tag: bookbinding tools

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Paring In Action

I finally made a (very) short video showing edge paring using an English style A2 Cryo knife. Hopefully, early next year, in the new tool catalog, there will be videos of all the tools in action.  In the meantime, descriptions and images of tools are in the “TOOL CATALOG”  in the right hand column.

Video seems a promising technology for the preservation of craft based knowledge: it can clearly demonstrate and record hand skill techniques.  It can also be potentially misleading in terms of how easily a tool is used, and “special effects” are available on any computer.  But videos are popular, great for marketing, persuasive and hot right now.

Sit back, eat a piece of popcorn and enjoy the next 39 seconds.

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A    PEACHEY    KNIFE    IN    ACTION

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C. Hammond Hammers

hammond1910

C. Hammond Catalog, 1910. Courtesy of Gary Roberts, who runs the website, toolemera, which has tons of other fascinating trade catalogs, mainly woodworking,  he has scanned from his personal collection.

Bexx Caswell, a recent NBSS grad,  noticed that the Edith Diehl hammer I wrote about earlier is actually a blank book hammer.  Bexx also also saw a similar hammer at Campbell-Logan Bindery in Minneapolis. The basic form descended from the French cobblers hammer I wrote about, but it is great to be able to trace its linage more precisely. The Diehl hammer that I own has some additional stamps (under the line that reads “PHLIA” it is stamped “CAST STEEL”) which leads me to think it is earlier than the one pictured in this catalog, since advertising cast steel is commonly more of a 19th century convention.

It is instructive to note that there were specialized hammers for Stationary Binders verses Bookbinders.  The large, long peen may have been useful when forming the extreme arch many blank book spines have.  Currently, most binders get by with one hammer, which mirrors the general decline in the diversity of specialized hand tools which continues to this day. Nineteenth century bookbinders also had specific hammer shapes for rounding, backing and, of course, beating.

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Turkish Cobblers Hammer

This French style cobblers hammer is interesting for two reasons- the very short handle, which actually gives a lot of control and I did observe an iterate street cobbler using an identical one, and the unusual method of head attachment.  Earlier French cobblers hammers often has straps that extended down the handle.  Salamon, in his Dictionary of Leatherworking tools pictures one.  In this case, there is not a wedge that holds the handle in the eye, but a hole is drilled through the wood and the thick wire extending up through the sides of the eye are bent over to peen the metal to the wood.  I haven’t been extremly rough with it, but it seems a fairly secure method. I purchased all of these in Istabul, Turkey in 2008.