The other day I was doing a bit of bog-standard backing when I had an epiphany. I suddenly realized something about the way I was working and what I was doing that drastically changed how I looked at the process. I figured out a new way to do it, one that works better for me.
No, I'm not going to tell you what it was, because that would only interest someone who works with exactly the same equipment setup I have and that's not the point anyway. The point is that I had done that job thousands of times, and then I realized something that made one small part of the job easier and better.
That's how learning a craft goes. You chunk along at a certain point, and then suddenly one day you take a step up, and then you chunk along at that level for a while. Or one day you recall that you used to have a problem you haven't had for a long time, and you can't remember what - if anything - you're doing differently, but you do know that what used to be a problem isn't any more. Bit by bit all these little epiphanies make for better and better books.
What does this mean for you? Well, it means that if you want to be good at making books you need to make a lot of them, regularly, over time. If you make two books in Bookbinding 101 and six months later you make two more in Bookbinding 201 and then a year after that you make two more in Bookbinding 301 you may be able to say you have been taught advanced levels of bookbinding, but your books probably still aren't very good.
And you need to make different books. Not wildly different - as in one flag book, one photo album, etc. But say you have learned to do a standard sewn, rounded & jointed book. Take that one style and make many, many more. Make them with different papers of different styles and thicknesses. Heavy, light, newsprint, text weight, cover weight. Make them all, just in that one style, and make many of each, and you will learn a lot about binding that isn't in any books. Head down to your local used book store and get some of the older books that are actually sewn. Pull them apart, resew them and rebind them. Bind your newspapers and your pizza flyers, and know that every book you make, no matter what it is, improves your skill.
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Monday, 27 June 2011
Teaching and Learning
I was folding some large sheets of endpapering this morning, and thought of my first bookbinding course. It was a home study thing, so I was watching a video and didn't have any direct input from the teacher, but I was sure if I followed the instructions exactly it would all work out in the end.
After running us through the whole saga of paper grain, we got down to actual work and she showed us how to fold a piece of paper. She said that if you started the fold at either edge of the paper you would get little creases in the middle, and dictated that you must always press the fold down starting from the middle and pressing towards each side. She said that several times, just to make sure we got it.
Until then I had been pressing from the side and had no little creases. Under her instruction I started pressing from the centre and soon had lots of trouble with creases. But I was paying for the class, the teacher was well-known and respected, and I wanted to do what the teacher said. I persevered, and eventually developed a technique for starting at the centre and folding towards each side and not getting any creases most of the time. But it wasn't easy.
Flash forward a year until I started working at the bindery. The very first day I was told to fold some large sheets of paper. Aha! Something I know how to do! I confidently folded the paper the way I'd been instructed.
Wrong! The bindery manager had apprenticed in London and worked in a variety of binderies for many years before moving to Canada. He knew his folding. Mine was wrong, wrong, wrong. How should I have done it? Exactly the way I had been doing it right at the beginning before I had any instruction, of course. The way that I did it where I had no trouble at all with little creases.
So was the teacher wrong, wrong, wrong? No, I don't think so. The teacher was telling us the way she did it, and outlining the problems she had had that she had solved her way - which is pretty well the only way anybody can teach. It is up to the student to receive the teaching, practice what they're taught, and when they've reached a level of confidence they can then decide whether they want to follow what they were told, or do something else.
After running us through the whole saga of paper grain, we got down to actual work and she showed us how to fold a piece of paper. She said that if you started the fold at either edge of the paper you would get little creases in the middle, and dictated that you must always press the fold down starting from the middle and pressing towards each side. She said that several times, just to make sure we got it.
Until then I had been pressing from the side and had no little creases. Under her instruction I started pressing from the centre and soon had lots of trouble with creases. But I was paying for the class, the teacher was well-known and respected, and I wanted to do what the teacher said. I persevered, and eventually developed a technique for starting at the centre and folding towards each side and not getting any creases most of the time. But it wasn't easy.
Flash forward a year until I started working at the bindery. The very first day I was told to fold some large sheets of paper. Aha! Something I know how to do! I confidently folded the paper the way I'd been instructed.
Wrong! The bindery manager had apprenticed in London and worked in a variety of binderies for many years before moving to Canada. He knew his folding. Mine was wrong, wrong, wrong. How should I have done it? Exactly the way I had been doing it right at the beginning before I had any instruction, of course. The way that I did it where I had no trouble at all with little creases.
So was the teacher wrong, wrong, wrong? No, I don't think so. The teacher was telling us the way she did it, and outlining the problems she had had that she had solved her way - which is pretty well the only way anybody can teach. It is up to the student to receive the teaching, practice what they're taught, and when they've reached a level of confidence they can then decide whether they want to follow what they were told, or do something else.
Friday, 17 June 2011
Making Do
One of the things I love about bookbinding is that you can do it with so few tools. Sure, it's nice to have a press and specially-constructed beaded pressing boards but in a pinch, if you know what you're doing, bricks and smooth hardboard and knitting needles also work.
And it's nice to have a sewing frame that is professionally made of polished wood and a thing of beauty on its own. Sadly, the boss wanted $450 for it, so I had to leave "mine" behind when I left my job, and ever since I've been making do with sewing on the edge of a piece of hardboard and taping the sewing tapes to the back side. Which works fine for one book. Or two. But it takes time to set up, and when I contemplated making a series of books I tried not to think of the time that would be spent taping little pieces of tape onto the backside of the board, and flinging them back when they got in the way of the sewing, and otherwise fussing around with them.
So I went out into the world to have a little look-see, and this is what I found:
It's made of aluminum tubes, is very lightweight, and telescopes sideways to a maximum of 28", for those big books. And it has shelves - a number of them, though I'm only using two here. You get 8 shelves with it, each about 3" wide. As a sewing frame, it works great. The only problem is that you have to elevate your textblock somehow, but I have lots of books handy, and just shoved a couple in to support the textblock.
This tool didn't cost anywhere near $450. In fact, it cost $32.98.
What is it? It's an expandable under-the-sink storage shelf. I got mine at Bed, Bath & Beyond, but I'm sure they can be found any number of places.
Do you have any tools that are really something else?
And it's nice to have a sewing frame that is professionally made of polished wood and a thing of beauty on its own. Sadly, the boss wanted $450 for it, so I had to leave "mine" behind when I left my job, and ever since I've been making do with sewing on the edge of a piece of hardboard and taping the sewing tapes to the back side. Which works fine for one book. Or two. But it takes time to set up, and when I contemplated making a series of books I tried not to think of the time that would be spent taping little pieces of tape onto the backside of the board, and flinging them back when they got in the way of the sewing, and otherwise fussing around with them.
So I went out into the world to have a little look-see, and this is what I found:
It's made of aluminum tubes, is very lightweight, and telescopes sideways to a maximum of 28", for those big books. And it has shelves - a number of them, though I'm only using two here. You get 8 shelves with it, each about 3" wide. As a sewing frame, it works great. The only problem is that you have to elevate your textblock somehow, but I have lots of books handy, and just shoved a couple in to support the textblock.
This tool didn't cost anywhere near $450. In fact, it cost $32.98.
What is it? It's an expandable under-the-sink storage shelf. I got mine at Bed, Bath & Beyond, but I'm sure they can be found any number of places.
Do you have any tools that are really something else?
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Back to the Future
I see today there are lots of posts on lots of blogs, all from people who went to BEA (BookExpo America) last week and are now buzzing about digital books and How They're Taking Over And We Can't Stop It, and How It's The End of Books.
OK, so I'll say it here. Just a small comment, but I'll say it.
Think of people buying books. It's a money-making opportunity. So you write a book, and you go find a printer and get it printed up, and then you go to some place where people will hear your voice, and you try to sell it. Or maybe you know how to do the printing yourself, so you go out and find books to print and you print them and then you go to some place where people will hear your voice, and you try to sell them.
Everybody's their own entrepreneur. One person can write a book and sell it - and thousands more will try it and fail but that's not the point. The point is that the industry - and the money - is in the hands of the little guy.
Does that sound like the current state of digital publishing?
That's odd, because it's a description of the state of book publishing 350 years ago. Back then, your book was printed by cold type on a handpress, either by you or by some guy who lived down the alley, and you might be hawking your book on the village green, but you had the power to publish your own books, and to price and sell them. Over time, little publishers arose and became big publishers, and a giant industry arose around the process of printing and publishing - one in which the writer and the printer were fairly small cogs in the process. Publishers made money through volume, and volume arose through cheap printing which came via machine-made paper and then huge offset printers and dozens of other money-saving advances, and with each one the amount of capital expense needed to publish a book rose until the little guy pretty much couldn't handle it.
Now, thanks to digital publishing, we're right back where we were in the 17th century. Anybody can publish a book, but they're hawking them on the Internet rather than on the street.
I'm not saying digipub isn't a bad thing for some people. There's a loss of professionalism and a loss of knowledge and lots of books that won't get through to as many people because they don't find out about them when the bookstores aren't there to put them on their shelves. I'm not saying the industry isn't changing - I'm just saying I don't think it'll be the end, and I don't think it's necessarily a disaster.
Last week I had an interview in which I tried to explain being a bookbinder. Knowing that in the average population most people don't really understand bookbinding, I took along four books I had bound - a full goat, an historical full calf, a buckram and one bound in velvet. I slapped them into the interviewer's hand and bid her hold them and turn the pages. She wanted to keep on holding them. Once I figure out how to get more people to experience well-bound books again, I think people will be clamouring to have their books rebound.
OK, so I'll say it here. Just a small comment, but I'll say it.
Think of people buying books. It's a money-making opportunity. So you write a book, and you go find a printer and get it printed up, and then you go to some place where people will hear your voice, and you try to sell it. Or maybe you know how to do the printing yourself, so you go out and find books to print and you print them and then you go to some place where people will hear your voice, and you try to sell them.
Everybody's their own entrepreneur. One person can write a book and sell it - and thousands more will try it and fail but that's not the point. The point is that the industry - and the money - is in the hands of the little guy.
Does that sound like the current state of digital publishing?
That's odd, because it's a description of the state of book publishing 350 years ago. Back then, your book was printed by cold type on a handpress, either by you or by some guy who lived down the alley, and you might be hawking your book on the village green, but you had the power to publish your own books, and to price and sell them. Over time, little publishers arose and became big publishers, and a giant industry arose around the process of printing and publishing - one in which the writer and the printer were fairly small cogs in the process. Publishers made money through volume, and volume arose through cheap printing which came via machine-made paper and then huge offset printers and dozens of other money-saving advances, and with each one the amount of capital expense needed to publish a book rose until the little guy pretty much couldn't handle it.
Now, thanks to digital publishing, we're right back where we were in the 17th century. Anybody can publish a book, but they're hawking them on the Internet rather than on the street.
I'm not saying digipub isn't a bad thing for some people. There's a loss of professionalism and a loss of knowledge and lots of books that won't get through to as many people because they don't find out about them when the bookstores aren't there to put them on their shelves. I'm not saying the industry isn't changing - I'm just saying I don't think it'll be the end, and I don't think it's necessarily a disaster.
Last week I had an interview in which I tried to explain being a bookbinder. Knowing that in the average population most people don't really understand bookbinding, I took along four books I had bound - a full goat, an historical full calf, a buckram and one bound in velvet. I slapped them into the interviewer's hand and bid her hold them and turn the pages. She wanted to keep on holding them. Once I figure out how to get more people to experience well-bound books again, I think people will be clamouring to have their books rebound.
Monday, 23 May 2011
Jane Austen, Bookmaker
Ran across an article about the upcoming sale of one of Austen's few surviving manuscripts - this one a partial MS of "The Watsons". What intrigued me for bookbinding was learning that Austen wrote on little sections of paper that she made (presumably herself, since she was very private about her writing), by cutting a sheet of paper in two, trimming the edges, stacking the two pages and folding them in half, to create 8 page sides to write on.
As her novels are quite long, I rather suspect that as she finished her sections she sewed them to one another, to keep them in order and to facilitate going back and re-reading. With only two pages to sew through, she could have done that herself quite easily, and just as easily, if she corrected so much that she needed to replace a few pages, she could cut the thread and replace the section.
The size of the pages interests me; it is said she wrote on small pages but the one photo I did see online shows that each side contains about 25 lines of about 45 - 50 characters each, and the lines are not particularly crammed together; nor is the writing. So I suspect she was making her sections by cutting down a sheet of the paper that would have been normally used at the time - perhaps a crown or a small demy - something about 15" x 20", folded and then trimmed, would have given roughly the right size; a quarto of about 7.5" x 10" (19 cm x 25.5 cm)
When the auction details are posted I will find the size and see how close I came.
As her novels are quite long, I rather suspect that as she finished her sections she sewed them to one another, to keep them in order and to facilitate going back and re-reading. With only two pages to sew through, she could have done that herself quite easily, and just as easily, if she corrected so much that she needed to replace a few pages, she could cut the thread and replace the section.
The size of the pages interests me; it is said she wrote on small pages but the one photo I did see online shows that each side contains about 25 lines of about 45 - 50 characters each, and the lines are not particularly crammed together; nor is the writing. So I suspect she was making her sections by cutting down a sheet of the paper that would have been normally used at the time - perhaps a crown or a small demy - something about 15" x 20", folded and then trimmed, would have given roughly the right size; a quarto of about 7.5" x 10" (19 cm x 25.5 cm)
When the auction details are posted I will find the size and see how close I came.
Friday, 20 May 2011
Shapes and Sizes
Like a lot of romantics, I fell in love with heart books the first time I saw them. No, I'm not talking about the modern version, where you bend two adjacent pages towards one another and push the foredges down to the spine so it makes a heart shape.
I'm talking about the original late medieval/Renaissance-era heart-shaped books, like this one in the Royal Danish Library
When I started bookbinding, I thought binding a heart shape was going to be easy. So I talked about it to my boss, and saw the slow smile spread across his face - the smile that said "It's harder than you think", and "Why don't you make one and get back to me". Well, since then I've made thousands of [rectangular] books, and he's right. The main issue is going to be shaping the thing, because knives and guillotines are really good at cutting straight lines, but not curves. And I suspect that if you printed it (yes, I know this one was hand-written, but bear with me) on rectangular pages and then cut down the sewn textblock you'd have a problem with accidentally cutting into the text. To say nothing of the agony that would ensue if your knife slipped, after all that work.
So my theory, as yet untested, is that if you're going to hand-print it, you rough-cut the shaped pages, fold and sew them in the heart shape, and put it between two shaped boards, clamp them and cut or sand the textblock down so the edges are even. Then you could apply your edge treatment (this one is gilded but I'm not going there, not at first).
This really does sound like a fun thing to try this summer. But I'll get back to you.
I'm talking about the original late medieval/Renaissance-era heart-shaped books, like this one in the Royal Danish Library
When I started bookbinding, I thought binding a heart shape was going to be easy. So I talked about it to my boss, and saw the slow smile spread across his face - the smile that said "It's harder than you think", and "Why don't you make one and get back to me". Well, since then I've made thousands of [rectangular] books, and he's right. The main issue is going to be shaping the thing, because knives and guillotines are really good at cutting straight lines, but not curves. And I suspect that if you printed it (yes, I know this one was hand-written, but bear with me) on rectangular pages and then cut down the sewn textblock you'd have a problem with accidentally cutting into the text. To say nothing of the agony that would ensue if your knife slipped, after all that work.
So my theory, as yet untested, is that if you're going to hand-print it, you rough-cut the shaped pages, fold and sew them in the heart shape, and put it between two shaped boards, clamp them and cut or sand the textblock down so the edges are even. Then you could apply your edge treatment (this one is gilded but I'm not going there, not at first).
This really does sound like a fun thing to try this summer. But I'll get back to you.
Friday, 6 May 2011
Wanted: One Engineering Degree
If you read my last post you have your suspicions as to why it's been a while.
Yes, the stamping was a challenge, an obstacle, a learning experience, and a pain. It also took days. So many days, and so many ruined covers, that I ran out of cover cloth, had to go back and get more from someone who didn't want to sell it to me, made more covers, ran out of board, rescued and re-lined board from the ruined covers, and finally, just when the deadline loomed and I had already made my disaster plan, the process gelled enough for me to get my two covers decently stamped.
I want to explain. I'm not only new to typeholders - I'm new to typeholders that fall apart in the middle of a stamp, sending hot metal cascading down onto the prepared foil and making random gold marks, or just burning the bejeesus out of my fingers as I scramble to prevent that from happening.
Here is my best typeholder:
In case you're wondering - no, it's not supposed to come in two pieces. If you don't know typeholders, here's the problem: The brass part holds the type, which must be heated evenly to about 200 degrees (F.) or so. You have to heat it thoroughly, or the heat will be uneven and the stamping will be uneven, too. The brass part comes inserted into the wooden handle. Over time, bit by bit, with occasionally leaving the handle to get too hot or occasionally forgetting all about it until you smell smoke, the interior of the handle burns itself out. You can see the scorch marks at the top - the inside of the handle is completely charred and disintegrated. You can stuff cloth into the hole inside the handle, or leather, or whatever you will, enough to seemingly hold the brass part in place, but it has a habit of giving way at exactly the wrong moment.
I got my typeholders at a discount because they were used and burnt out. I'm an optimist - I think I can make them work. I even think I can improve them. First, I want to make a handle that is intended to be removable. I would like to be able to heat up the brass section without there being a handle on it that must be cossetted and watched and prevented from burning. Then, when the brass is heated, I want to be able to snap on a handle that will hold it firmly, and get to work. The handle should be easy to snap on and off, and should have heat resistance. I'm thinking the part of the handle that touches the metal needs to have an insulator - maybe a layer cut out of a silicon potholder - but the handle overall needs to be the right size and shape to fit well into my hand, as sometimes I have to apply quite a bit of pressure.
The tang on the brass section is slightly tapered and has a square profile and is about 1-1/4" long. Somehow the handle has got to fit over that quickly and easily. Now that I know what I want, the thing is to figure out how to make it. Wish I'd gotten that engineering degree when I had the chance ...
Yes, the stamping was a challenge, an obstacle, a learning experience, and a pain. It also took days. So many days, and so many ruined covers, that I ran out of cover cloth, had to go back and get more from someone who didn't want to sell it to me, made more covers, ran out of board, rescued and re-lined board from the ruined covers, and finally, just when the deadline loomed and I had already made my disaster plan, the process gelled enough for me to get my two covers decently stamped.
I want to explain. I'm not only new to typeholders - I'm new to typeholders that fall apart in the middle of a stamp, sending hot metal cascading down onto the prepared foil and making random gold marks, or just burning the bejeesus out of my fingers as I scramble to prevent that from happening.
Here is my best typeholder:
I got my typeholders at a discount because they were used and burnt out. I'm an optimist - I think I can make them work. I even think I can improve them. First, I want to make a handle that is intended to be removable. I would like to be able to heat up the brass section without there being a handle on it that must be cossetted and watched and prevented from burning. Then, when the brass is heated, I want to be able to snap on a handle that will hold it firmly, and get to work. The handle should be easy to snap on and off, and should have heat resistance. I'm thinking the part of the handle that touches the metal needs to have an insulator - maybe a layer cut out of a silicon potholder - but the handle overall needs to be the right size and shape to fit well into my hand, as sometimes I have to apply quite a bit of pressure.
The tang on the brass section is slightly tapered and has a square profile and is about 1-1/4" long. Somehow the handle has got to fit over that quickly and easily. Now that I know what I want, the thing is to figure out how to make it. Wish I'd gotten that engineering degree when I had the chance ...
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