bookbinding – Page 27 – Peachey Conservation

August 15, 2017August 15, 2017

What a Joint Groove does on an Adhered-Boards Binding

The opening of an uncovered adhered-boards binding without a joint groove. Notice where the board naturally rests under its own weight.

The opening of an uncovered adhered-boards binding with a joint groove. Here, the board opens more than 180 degrees.

The traditional reason given for using a joint groove is to allow the covering material to bend backwards in a more gentle manor, so that the board swings opens more widely without bunching up on itself. This was part of the reason the joint groove made a comeback in the early years of the twentieth century on leather bound books, along with the split-board structure, as a way to use thicker leather in order to make books more durable.

This, however, is only part of the story. Adhered-boards structures are very common in early nineteenth century American leather, paper and cloth bindings. Instead of laced boards, the slips are pasted to the outermost endleaf. Then the boards are adhered to this for about an inch or so. After this is dry, the unpasted area of the endleaf is torn off, and the boards can be trimmed to size.

As you can see in these images, the joint groove significantly affects the opening, even without any covering material. Note that it is the same book in both images, with the front board placed tight, and the back board with a joint groove.The difference surprised me. There is always something new to learn: this is what keeps me interested in the history and practice of bookbinding.

August 8, 2017August 8, 2017

If You Desire Perfect Fitting Covers; or, the Joint Groove

The International Bookbinder, Vol. 2, No. 4 April 1901. p. 14

This is an odd looking machine. The stand it is on resembles a typewriter or sewing machine table, which suggests to me it was used while the operator was seated. The foot clamp must open or close the jaws, which were also heated, if it is a gas line coming in from the back. The heat and pressure would soften the animal glue to define the cloth case on the bookblock. I’m not sure if 32 machines in use is impressive, or just a good start, or if any still exist. The cabinets under the table might contain different thickness of jaws for defining the joint groove.

The joint groove is the term Nicholas Pickwoad uses in his Language of Bindings dictionary of bookbinding terminology, and one that I especially like. It is succinctly descriptive, yet comprehensible to users of older terminology (the French joint, the American groove) without attributing it to a specific nationality or time. It would sound odd to refer to a 17th century Dutch stiffboard parchment binding as having an “American groove”, for example. Reportedly a book based on the Language of Bindings website is forthcoming from Oak Knoll Press.

I recall from a college linguistics class that prescriptive language changes have a poor track record, since language tends to change transactionally and dictionaries usually record usage. Possibly it is different for a very small group of book people using specialized terminology. Will fuzzy language searches and the ease of sharing images negate some of the need for a very strict terminology? Time will tell.

May 16, 2017May 16, 2017

Strong-backed and Neat-bound

screen-shot-2017-02-23-at-10-39-07-pm — Andrews, William Loring. *Bibliopegy in the United States and Kindred Subjects*. New York: Dodd Mead and Co., 1902, x.

It is well worth spending some time with the illustrations in Loring’s Bibliopegy. The online version gives a sense of them, but can’t capture the detail found in the book. Some are printed with two or more plates, one for the leather and one to reproduce the gold tooling. Others are photogravure. All are spectacular.

The text is sometimes of interest, especially Loring’s “explication” of the bookbinding section in Hazen’s 1837 Panaroma. He considered it the first treatise on American Bookbinding, although we now know most of it is recycled from earlier English Books of Trades. Even Nicholson’s 1856 Manual of the Art of Bookbinding, now generally considered the first American Bookbinding manual, is largely based on earlier English sources. As Sid Huttner notes in the Garland reprint introduction, “Little (one is tempted to say, if any) of Nicholson’s text came first from his own pen”.

Bibliopegy is a nineteenth century term for bookbinding. I like the way it sounds. A Guild of Bibliopegists? Or too pretentious?

Loring’s book is beautiful and neatly bound. But the paper case structure doesn’t have a joint groove and most copies I’ve seen, including mine, are tearing at the head and tail. The cover boards hit the thick spine piece, creating a levering action that tears the covering paper. Are the stakes for the binding higher when the book is about bookbinding? Can this bibliopegist admit a weakly backed book is still desirable?