I am pleased to announce the completion of my most recent binding, a copy of “Lines: Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a tour: July 13th 1798″, or, in short, “Lines”. The book is a 2002 publication by The Old Stile Press of a poem written by William Wordsworth which is often abbreviated to, “Tintern Abbey” although the building doesn’t actually appear within the poem. It was written by Wordsworth after a walking tour with his sister in this section of the Welsh Borders on the banks of the River Wye. The abbey fell into ruin after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century.
Frances and Nicolas McDowall from The Old Stile Press actually live on the banks of ‘the Sylvan Wye’, about two miles upstream from (‘above’) Tintern Abbey. Taken from The Old Stile Press website:
“Having lived for more than fifteen years amidst ‘these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape’, we felt the time had come to tackle the work that we have come to regard as ‘our’ poem.
We can almost see William Wordsworth’s footprints on our riverbank. Even before we came to live here we felt a deep affinity with this poem. Wordsworth helped us to understand and to accept the 'sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused’ of which we have always been aware. The images involved Nicolas editing photographs which had been taken on our stretch of the river but Frances too spent long hours at the vat to make paper for the entire project text, endpapers and binding.
Spring water on its way to the Wye is an essential part of this paper making process and plants grown beside that stream were used in the endpapers. Altogether a very personal project!”
Design Binding Commission - Singapore through 19th Century Photographs
Back in March this year, I started working on this commission for a dear customer, but my life went into a whirlwind of an upheaval. It was difficult to manage having a clear mind to work on a design binding, and having to sort out the toughest months in my life thus far. So I decided that I should pack it up and do it when I am at my best and my mind is clear.
As promised, I will show a weekly update of the work in progress, as my customer enjoys watching his book come along. And also, this is a chance for me to share about the process of how a design binding is done.
It is not often that the textblock comes nicely in folded sheets, unbound, from the printers. It almost always comes already bound, in the factory, by a machine. Then it takes some precision work, effort and a lot of slow careful heating to remove the factory binding. First the case comes off by gently cutting away the board endpaper, then with slow heating, the fly leaf comes off. I learned a very hard lesson to not pull off the tipped on fly leaf because it takes a whole chunk of paper off from the first folio of the first section. It will then be a tedious task to repair that. So instead of a heated tacking iron, I used a hair dryer to slowly heat it bit by bit, and ease it off slowly from the first folio. I enjoy looking at the textblock after all the nasty adhesive has been removed, and I have a nice clean spine to work on.
My initial idea for this book was to use rather bright colours in a kaleidoscope kind of way, but through these months away from my bench, I decided that this book should not have such a loud cover, for such an amazing collection of photographs of my country from the 19th century. I have decided to do something more 3 dimensional, almost as though the photographs are coming out at you. But subtle.
So first things first, the endpapers ideas have to be sorted out, endpapers decorated, prepared and then sewing will begin.
This week’s endpaper challenge raised a lot of questions. The thing that I find about Arthur Johnson sometimes is that the description of a method can be rather ambiguous. It is a double edged sword as it could either give room for the bookbinder to interpret and create something based on their knowledge, or it could totally confuse a new bookbinder who is looking at this manual for guidance. In Method 6, it is described as:
“In 6, the waste is torn away, the linen is stuck to the board to cover the joint and strengthen the hinge, and the board paper is a separate single sheet put down as a doublure.”
So firstly, in the diagram, there was a dot, that represent sewing, missing in the section. This led to questions about whether there is sewing in the sections. It is pretty obvious to an experienced bookbinder that it is a mistake in the diagram, but it still confusing.
This is called “a simple and efficient linen-jointed endpaper”, which means that the linen is exposed along the hinge. I thought about how thin linen like Fray-not might make the book look a little unfinished, or raw, or even materials like Jaconette, might look a little strange, almost as if the book was incomplete.
I decided to consult Mark about this endpaper method and seek his advice. He has kindly done a video on Facebook describing how the cloth-jointed endpaper is made. It is a modified and improved version where the folded endpaper is sewn to the textblock and the folded sheet is put down as the board paper. It is a good technique and I think it reduces the number of steps involved, including adding a waste sheet.
I decided that perhaps I should follow as closely to what the manual says. But instead of a thin linen or Jaconette, I decided to use an unlined book cloth. It is book cloth that has been treated but not backed by any paper, so it is thin, but a bit tricky as the front side does not take adhesives too well. I also put in the waste sheet just to see what it really does, and in fact, I guess it was just included to prevent the flyleaf from getting dirty during the binding process. If you are a neat bookbinder, then the waste sheet is not very necessary.
The benefits of this endpaper method is that the single sheet fly leaf between the section and the folded endpaper allows for printing to be done. For instance, if a customer wishes for a title page, or a dedication page to be added to the textblock, this is where a single sheet could fit into a home or professional printer. It can be then cut to size tipped between the folded endpaper and the textblock. This method also can be really beautiful because the cloth used for the joints, can be of a different colour from the covering cloth to give contrast and variety. The doublure also allows special printed sheets to be used.
Overall, I find this endpaper rather useful, and perhaps, I might use this method more in restoration and tricky books. This book here measures 14.5 x 20.3cm, has beautiful hand made flotage papers as doublures. It is for sale at SGD35 (excluding shipping).
Author: Aleksey Grushevoy
Location: Kiev, Ukraine
Mostly about bookbinding. My bookbinding group in social network VK.com: http://vk.com/artofbookbinding
ALL IMAGES, UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, WERE TAKEN FROM THE INTERNET AND ARE ASSUMED TO BE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.
