Showing posts with label fish leather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fish leather. Show all posts

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Mayflies of the Driftless Region - Done

Heading into the home stretch thanks to a week off at home. Plenty of procrastination, a speciality, but also good work on Mayflies and another binding...

First the open joint (offener Falz) where the only board attachment to the textblock is via the tapes, in this case a laminate of vellum and fish leather. The gray elements are stained birch veneer.



Then, an overview with boards attached, exterior and interior.



Attaching the final design elements to the middle of the fore-edge.

Attaching the tied mayfly to front board

Overall

Mayfly detail

Final steps, detail, touch-up where needed, make box!

To the Dorfner/de Gonet style (bottom of first post in series), I like it and have another binding using it in the works. Even though this is a smallish to average sized book, the tapes/slips must be flexible when opening cover, yet rigid so textblock does not sag. Nice to be able to work covers and textblock separately and then join.. I'm sure I'll have other thoughts as I give it the look(s) over...

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Mayflies of the Driftless Region

Good progress on Mayflies of the Driftless Region, vellum down, title stamped, doublures in place. Below some images. Half circles are aged wood veneer that will flank the fish-leather slips of all slips. Just didn't have scrap pieces.

Front cover

Front cover and spine

Cave Paper doublure with "open" joint

Back cover
Next step, gluing down slips and adding wood veneer to each side of slip to make a half-circle...

Read part one here.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Mayflies of the Driftless Region

Working on Gaylord Shanilec's Mayflies of the Driftless Region for Designer Bookbinders' "Contemporary Bindings of Private Press Books" exhibition that will open in the UK and travel to venues in the US. Book is due in the UK early January, 2014.

Gaylord kindly included prospecti when he sent the textblock and I bound those in at the back along with tipping in an original print (for the standard edition cover) opposite the title page.


Textblock sewn on three vellum back salmon leather slips and backed towards 90 degrees at shoulder. Double-folio Johannot endpapers to go with textblock.

Graphite top edge (others left untrimmed), wrapped salmon leather endband to match slips. Spine stiffener covered with salmon leather turned in at head and tail with leather very thin and wide enough to go down shoulders and onto endpaper. Cave paper flyleaves glued on at base of shoulder and on leather and at foredge for greater flexibility.

Wrapped endbands, graphite top edge, and prospecti guarded in at rear of textblock...

Spine view

Illustration from text scanned and output via inkjet. Sealed with varnish to prevent bleeding. A different illustration will go on the back board. Slips will extend onto covers on top of vellum, amount TBD

Vellum laid on top of artwork. Will show through with more clarity when vellum is pasted to boards.

Next steps, attach artwork to boards, cover in vellum, stamp title on front board, attach boards to textblock via slips...

Structure is an open joint binding (in German, Franzband mit offenem Falz), a style that is attributed to Otto Dorfner, a contemporary of Ignatz Wiemeler who also taught at the Bauhaus and bound some of the Cranach Press works... It is also used heavily by Jean de Gonet in France [Site has some broken links, click on "reliures" for bindings]. De Gonet also had a fantastic retrospective at the BNF, amazing catalog available via amazon.fr. Sonya Sheats a binder working in the Boston area uses it beautifully as well. Erin Fletcher did a very nice multi-part interview with her on her blog. Toon Van Camp a binder in Belgium describes the structure as he learned in a workshop with Brother Edgar Claes. Anne Puls, a German binder creates beautiful designs using this technique, something I would love see her write up.

Watch the design evolve as I post updates  while working on the binding.

Edit 11/10/13: Read part 2 here.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Fancied-up Books 2

Another commission that involved rebinding a modern trade binding. I had rediscovered several sheets of beautiful birch veneer and used this binding as an excuse to try weathering the wood and seeing how it worked as a prelude to another binding. It's nice to be able to transfer skills and materials from my model railroad hobby, but the other binding had its problems - while the wood turned in fairly easily on these 40pt boards, it was a bit more challenging on the other book, cracking and separating from the paper backing... On the upside and while hard to see in the image, the wood took the gold stamping for the title well, too. Amy Borezo has used this with great effect, turning-in or trimming flush with board edges. Her binding on the Guild's 100th Anniversary Catalog is here. The salmon skin was much easier to work with. This one is not polished but suede-like.

On Søren Kierkegaard by Edward F. Mooney

Bound in salmon leather on spine with stained birch veneer covered boards; endpapers of handmade Roma paper; graphite top edge; leather endbands; title stamped in gold on front cover with goat leather onlays. Enclosed is cloth-covered slipcase. Bound 2013.

Concept:Simple and elegant with a weathered look.