Tag: bookbinding

Wood

From a historical perspective, books and woodwork are closely connected. Before the days of wood pulp paper, the tools of the book trades were made primarily of wood. From the vats used to pulp linen rag in the paper trade, the printing press with woodcut pictures and wood text blocks in the printing trade, to the stitching frame and presses used in the binding trade. To this day, many of the bookbinder’s tools are wooden. As a hand tool woodworker, this makes establishing a traditional hand bindery an exercise in experimental history.

I am embarking on a long-term and expansive set of projects in the book arts and bibliography as an experimental historian. The first phase is to get the workshop back to a hand tool wood shop. This involves scaling back in several areas, and building the infrastructure necessary for woodworking and book arts. The primary piece of infrastructure the rest of the shop is built around is the workbench.

This joiner’s bench has a Moxon-style face vise with 24 inches between the screws. It is a relatively small bench at just 5 feet long and 17 inches wide. A typical joiner’s bench is 7 to 8 feet long; some are as long as 12 feet or more, and the typical joiner’s bench is 24 to 30 inches wide. This bench is made from Douglas Fir except for the face board and vise, which is Maple; it still weighs in at over 300 pounds unloaded. The workshop space available is small, just over 150 square feet of usable space, this set the scale of the bench.

The second step is to remove all of the existing factory-made shop furniture and replace it with options that save floor space and are custom-designed for the space and the work at hand. The first project is a Dutch tool chest.1 The chest being built is a little different from the ones in the book in that this chest has two smaller detached chests under the double shelf version of the main tool chest. The one pictured below is the bottom chest with heavy-duty casters. This chest is 27 inches wide, 14 inches tall, and 12 inches deep. The middle chest is the pile of cut lumber sitting on the workbench and is 27 x 13 x 12. That build starts tomorrow. The top chest build should start within the next two weeks; its final dimensions have not yet been determined, but should come in around 27 x 31 x 12. The total height of the three should be between 60 and 65 inches.

Once all three sections of the tool chest are completed, the factory-made furnishings can be emptied, either into the Dutch chest(s), or into temporary storage containers. The factory tool chest and rolling cabinet/bench will be sold, and the workshop’s cabinetry projects can begin.

The keen observer might have noticed the two wood tap and die sets on the workbench to the right of the lumber. These will be for a set of parallel projects. The 1-inch tap and die is for making the wooden screws for a stitching frame, and the 1 1/2 inch set is for the screws of a finishing vise and trimming frame. A small nipping press will also use a 1 1/2 inch screw. The factory-made wood tap and die sets were purchased for expediency. Down the project path, there will be a need for 2-inch, 4-inch, and 6-inch tap and die sets that will be shop-made. These large shop-made tap and die sets will be substantial projects in and of themselves. As one might expect, the projects requiring such large wood screws will be epic adventures.

Between the cabinetry and bookbinding workshop infrastructure projects, research will continue with an emphasis on bookbinding and bibliographically adjacent subjects as the workshop and bindery come into their own. The workspace and bindery are just the beginning. The journey will be filled with research and experimentation with materials, processes, and equipment. Along the way, conservation and preservation projects will be popping in from time to time, expanding opportunities. I have several 18th, 19th, and 20th century books and documents that need some love and should start making appearances this summer.

Things are beginning to take shape. It will be a very interesting and informative long and windy road. ‘Tis an adventure to my liking.

  1. Fitzpatrick, Megan. Dutch Tool Chests. Lost Art Press, 2004. ↩︎

The Impecunious Bibliophile

My earliest memories contain books; if not central to the memories, they are adjacent to or on the periphery of them. My grandmother was an avid and studious reader, a librarian, and a teacher by trade. There were always piles of books on her desk at home, most from one library or another. On rare occasions, she would bring a special book home from work that needed extra care in its repair and return to service. She was not, to speak, a collector of books, nor did she keep many at home. Her preservation techniques were distinctly focused on returning books to library service, not the fastidious preservation of a curator or collector. Books did not become a key element of my memories of my mother until later in her life, when she began to accumulate books of interest. At this time in her life, she was wheelchair-bound, and library trips could be difficult. This was likely a factor in her choice to buy rather than borrow. Though she was not as curious in a broad sense as my grandmother, she did find herself going down rabbit holes on occasion. One could say, I come by my afflictions honestly.

Books can bring many things to those who appreciate them. For most, they provide a sense of escapism in one form or another. For many, it is to inform or educate. For others, it is to reinforce their worldview. Others seek wisdom and inspiration in the writings of great thinkers. It is likely, dear reader, that you find some comfort in each of these from time to time. A rather small and obsessed group finds the medium itself to be the most fascinating collection of trades and practices. It is in this small group that I find my people. Though I am at the earliest stages of my serious, dare I say professional, bibliographic journey, I find myself counting gatherings and looking for chains, formulating how the text block was constructed, and how it was cased. Who published this volume? Who printed it? What edition and pressing? What are its points?

The making of books has always been of great interest. From the laying of paper and sizing, pressing it to wood and metal, transferring pigment, folding and stitching the gatherings into a text block. Treatment of the text block, cut or not, opened or not, gilded or painted edges, how will it be cased, and with what materials? All decisions that will affect the owner’s relationship with the volume, on their shelf, in their hand, and in their hearts. That I would collect and deal in these jewels of humanity was a foregone conclusion, as is the need to have a closer, more intimate relationship with the form; to bring new volumes to life, yes, but also to preserve and protect those already formed.

Books and history, history and books. The path is broad and open. Where it leads is over the horizon, yet down the path I go, books in hand.