Saturday, August 29, 2009

Part III, Bookbinding Workshop in Santa, Idaho


Days 6-9: Well, things are getting a bit intense now. I only have three days left, and many, many things still to do. I carved my wooden pegs (you can see them at upper left). I will hammer the pegs in the holes in the book covers, so the cords will stay securely where they're supposed to. The book is opened, so you can see where the cords came in one hole and went out another:


I also needed to cut out the brass pieces of my book clasp, and then use nippers and files to shape them. Jim believes in doing every little part of the book in the "old way", so I even designed and drew the pattern for my clasps by hand.
Here are the brass pieces for my clasps, plus the cardboard patterns and some of the files I used to shape them. The brass is some that Jim got from architectural salvage places.


And here are the clasps, ready to be attached to the book covers. The brown parts are pieces of leather that I glued around a piece of parchment, then attached to the brass pieces (sorry about the fuzzy photo--I must have been overly excited when I took it).

Next, I carved out places on the cover boards for the brass clasps to fit into. You can just barely see my pencil marks on the cover board showing where the clasps will go. This board is sitting on a groovy little thingie that hooks over the table edge and has a lip at the back edge to rest the board against. That way, I can put pressure on the board while I'm carving it without the board sliding all over the table:



My book will have a leather covered spine. Here Jim is demonstrating how to pare the edges of the leather so it won't bunch up at the corners of the book spine.


Eeek! It's the last day, time is running out, and I'm still behind. Here I'm putting a thin tissue backing on the spine of my text block.



The next thing I did was assemble the book and attach the leather to the spine. It's a pity I didn't take any photos, as it took place at 10 o'clock on the last night I was there, and I wish I had a record of my desperate attempts to coax a chunk of limp, wheat paste soaked leather around the cords and generally where it was supposed to go. In lieu of photos of that event, here are some of other accommodations on the Croft place. If I had been more adventurous, I could have set up my sleeping bag here...


...or in this sweat lodge/ tepee affair (I think they put on a canvas cover if someone stays in it).




And here is my finished book. Yay! Note the leather spine that fortunately shows no sign of the late night pasting struggle:

Here is a view that shows the clasps. I made every bit of the clasps by hand, even down to making the nails out of pieces of brass rod. I will keep this book forever, as a memento of my time at the Crofts, but will be making other books with wooden covers (a slightly different design), which I will unveil here at a future date.



And so, after nine amazing days of dirt, mosquito bites, sawing, filing, gluing and general backwoods bookbinding, I packed up my stuff, hopped in my car and headed back down the road, sad to leave, but so very happy that I came here.

You can find out more about Jim Croft and the workshops he teaches at his website:

6 comments:

dinahmow said...

What a beautiful piece of work. No wonder you'll keep it!What does it weigh?
Oh, yes - your 'groovie little thingie' is a bench hook.Lino (and some wood) cutters use them.

moonandhare said...

It is actually quite light in weight. One thing I really love about it is that if you grip both front and back edges of the covers and squeeze gently, the hooks on the hinges pop open and then you can open the book. I filed those hooks for hours to get the right tension.

Judith HeartSong said...

It is beautiful and I LOVE the handmade clasps!!!!

You do such wonderful work and the workshop must have been just marvelous.

Velma Bolyard said...

i never did get my leather on... but it's gonna be finished one of these days! you did a great job reporting on book camp. memories...

Elsi Vassdal Ellis said...

Barbara: I took a few minutes during lunch to surf and got to your blog. When I got to the Croft workshop pictures I thought I was looking at the book I had done when Jim was here in Bellingham in November 2008. We used the same leather - the same wood. The only difference was how you did your bands. I hammered mine but had full metal bands and clasps! Did you sew headbands?

I fully enjoyed your limp leather bindings as well. Congrats on your book accepted into the Bind-O-Rama!

Elsi

moonandhare said...

Nice to hear from you, Elsie! I really enjoyed the workshop I took from you last year. I didn't have time to do end bands on my wooden book, unfortunately. Someday, on another book, perhaps....