Tag: bookbinding

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Call For Images: Historic, Artistic or Technically Innovative Book Boxes

Dudin boxAn Asian style box was considered important enough to be illustrated in René Martin Dudin’s L’Art du Relieur-Doreur de Livres, Paris, Saillant & Nyon, 1772. My collection.

I’m preparing a presentation to accompany a workshop about drop spine boxes that contain an integral cradle. To date, I am scheduled to teach this workshop at Columbia College (Chicago, May 23-25) and at the Focus on Bookarts Conference (Forest Grove, OR, June 25-27).

I’d like to include a variety of images of historic, artistic and technically innovative book boxes. I am interested in early boxes from the nineteenth century, like the solander or the moulded fire-resisting pull-off case. I would love to have a selection of artistic boxes that either through design or action enhance or comment on the book enclosed within. Images of technically inventive boxes are also welcome, such as those that protect unusually sized or shaped books, house remains of binding parts removed, or have an integral cradle. I also intend to write up some kind of summary in a blog post.

If anyone has images they willing to share, please send up to 3 digital images to me by March 17, 2013. Include: your name, how you want to be identified (links to your website, etc), the name of the work (or book housed within), dimensions, date. I’m not sure if I will be able to use all the images, though if I only get one submission….

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Big Bamboo Folders

Finally, the perfectly shaped bamboo folder?!?

Hand tools, in particular, need to be tested and evaluated by using them. A poor design aspect quickly becomes apparent. The simpler the tool, the more critical each aspect is. And tools don’t get much simpler than a smooth bone or wood folder.

Folders are used by bookbinders to fold paper, smooth covering materials, shape leather, and evenly adhere various covering materials. Bone, ivory, teflon, and sometimes wood, are the usual materials for western style folders.  Teflon has an extremely low coefficient of friction, making it ideal when you want to slide the tool over a surface that you don’t want to mark. Bone has a density and feels—for lack of a better term—traditional. I especially recommend the higher quality ones made by Jim Croft from wild elk and deer. Bamboo has been used in the east for many purposes. It has a higher coefficient of friction to it which makes it useful for pulling a covering material. A light touch or protective covering sheet must be used if marking is suspected to be a problem.

Bone folders —like most tools— have become smaller over time (technically known as ‘dinkification’).  Evidence from the eighteenth century France suggests folders, commonly wood at this time, may have been 12 -18 inches long.  The bamboo folders I’ve been experimenting with are a more modest  9-10 inches, though.

I keep tweaking and altering small aspects of these folders with successive iterations. The long straight sides can be used like a case folder, for turning- in. The flat areas at the pointed end are useful for pressing and forming headcaps. The angled tip useful in box making. The rounded end handy when defining joints or adhering board edges. The relatively long length makes them more comfortable to hold. This is the theory, at least. Quite likely there is no ideal shape, but what we prefer and use changes with our working habits. Or we choose tools to break us out of habituated working methods.

Bamboo is quite easy to shape and fun to work with.  I’ve written up some tips on working with it in an earlier post. If you discover the perfect shape, please let me know. I’ve already started on the next one, which will certainly be the absolutely most perfect….

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Bathroom Book Restoration

Washing

Text block washing, old school. The binder has a curious expression, a mix of intense concentration, shock and self conscious posing.  Courtesy Anonymous Bookbinder

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The back of the above photo. Courtesy Anonymous Bookbinder