Fritz Otto Examines "The Salmon of Wisdom"

 A new fish skin binding acquisition for the piscatorial collection.

The Salmon of Wisdom from the Folklore Fish series. It is bound in salmon prepared by @sosnastudios with hazelnut-dyed salmon lacing. The book was one of 3 exhibited in the Beyond Bookbinding 2023 exhibit at @nbssboston in Boston where Sara, '23, is a student. Take a look at her Instagram and more fish skin bindings.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Fritz Otto Buchbinder (@fritzottobuchbinder)

Fritz Otto Photographing Buchbinderei

Despite how easy it is to take pictures these days, Fritz Otto prefers black and white film. It's the tones and graininess he likes. Here we took some interior images of Buchbinderei before putting it back on the layout. The black and white images he took using a self-timer, though it was very hard to hold still for those 1-2 seconds.

All images shot on Ilford HP5 400 speed black and white film using a tripod and cable release for these 1-2 second average exposures. And no, I did not forget the Farbfilm. Lighting was provided by the cool white fluorescent in the task light visible in the first image below.

Taking a photo of the little scene.

Here an up-close view.

Holding v-e-r-y still.

An overhead with the roof off.

Putting the roof back on.

And, back to the layout it went...

Bindery Done

There was once a bindery in Berlin that was situated under railroad tracks... Incorporating that into my train layout seemed like a wonderful way to combine interests...

This is the concluding post of my "bindery" thread, wrapping up my big push in the last week or so to outfit the interior of the bindery. Shelves and cabinet fronts downloaded from Scalescenes, a few shelves ordered (3-d printed and laser cut) that still require work, but the heavy lifting of workbench, counter tops, board shear, Prägnant stamping press, and standing press were all scratch built to 1:87 or thereabouts. As a frame of reference most figures are just under 2cm tall, and "standard" bench height is about 1cm high.

Not sure why I do this to myself as it would have been so much easier to just glue in some photos from a bindery, set back behind the [grimy] window to make it look realish. What I do know is that it wouldn't have been half as much fun. Bonus, Fritz Otto and his smaller hands helped out a lot.

Counters and shelves assembled. That dropped section is
that way for a reason. 😉

Bench assembled. It has storage shelves
underneath for board and paper.
The black things are parts for the board shear.

No, that's not a Star Wars TIE fighter... Just board shear parts.

The assembled board shear, really just a massively over-sized
paper/sheet metal cutter. Note the blade...

Bindery staff debating the position of the blade when not in use...
Down like above, ...

..., or up like here. Most colleagues seem to say down.
I have mine up, so it's ready to use...
Yes, the blade moves.

Next piece of equipment, the Prägnant stamping press.
I loved using this as an apprentice because it was very easy to
adjust and you could see exactly where the type was going...
More here on Instagram.

See where the Prägnant stamping press goes.
Lower than the counters is the ideal working height.

Last big piece of equipment, a standing press. Still want to make
some hand-/finishing-presses, but yikes...
Note the posters on walls.

The posters for the bindery walls pull together a lot of threads from my bookbinding
related life, from Ernst Collin and W. Collin, to Babette, to Werner Kiessig,
to apprentice journal cartoons and bindery advertising.
Several also reference women binders, and this is a woman run bindery.

The bindery has a copper clad roof, too. And, yes, it is removable
to get the best view of the details, and light it up, sort of. 
Still some details to add like awnings over the side door and windows.

Also going to replace the windows. I liked the griminess,
but when sealing it with mat spray it got too cloudy.
It's good to have clean windows, and this is Germany after all.

Looking in through the new windows.

And more windows you can see through. Also added some window boxes an awning above.

We're closed now, but it looks like someone left their bike outside.
Hopefully, it'll still be there in the morning.

Still to do beyond the things already mentioned, making some Potemkinish stacks of work in progress, and hanging a shingle from the facade. Loving how this looks, and glad to have this model on my train layout, especially as it ties together so many personal experiences and research interests.

Getting the windows washed for the public opening of Buchbinderei.
The bike seems to have made it through the night unscathed.

Buchbinderei at night. Everyone is working late...

Buchbinderei is also no more, the space having become Tipico, a betting salon. As can be expected, the facade was repainted as well. I will imagine that the original Buchbinderi is just hidden beneath the sign... 

Tipico, formerly Buchbinderei, in Berlin.
Photo by https://buchrestaurierung-berlin.de/.
Danke für die Aufnahme.

Bindery Interior Progress

It's always wonderful when different parts of our lives and interests can intersect. In addition to bookbinding and conservation, model railroading has long been an interest and big part of my life, also in terms of basement square footage. 😏

In an earlier post, I described using photographic images to reinterpret an existing structure on my layout. At this stage almost all the structures on my layout are made from cardboard and paper including laser cut kits, but increasingly built from scratch by me using scraps from the bindery. In addition to the raw materials, there are also the skills of a binder that are widely applied, especially box making. After all, what is structure but an overly complicated box. You can read descriptions of some other similar projects on my main model railroad page.

Fritz Otto inspecting the facade so far.

Still a ways to go, but the elements fit on this weird, triangular
building site. Here the new bindery owner Gertrud Jannowitz poses
in front while her picture is taken [for the local paper?].

More images of the bindery exterior construction on the Papphausen blog. Papphausen? Papp[e] = card or cardboard. Makes sense, right?

Still to be determined is the interior, but the space is framed out, walls up, ... Pics of that process here. Now comes the hard work of detailing the interior with shelves, benches, storage, a desk, stools, a board shear, presses... We'll see how I make it work, but in 1:87?!?! I'll figure something out.

Looking in...

Finally, another fun fact is that there are numerous bookbinders and practitioners of allied arts and crafts who are also ferroequinologists. Gary Frost, Bernie Vinzani, and Bob Hanmer come to mind. Know anyone else?

Adding a Bindery to My Papphausen Train Layout

Back in 2014 I had shared images of what used to be a bindery located in an arcade under the Railroad and S[tadt]-Bahn tracks in Berlin. They weren't beautiful brick or stone arcades, but brutalist concrete on what is a kind of island between busy streets.

Yesterday, while surfing Google Maps I found that they had updated the images in that area, this time with an S-Bahn train overhead.

Buchbinderei near to Jannowitzbrücke, Berlin.

I think I will interpret that idea on my layout but opening a bindery in the lot below to the right of the gate and going back at an angle. The pigeon shack and BMW 2002s will need to be relocated...

The lot for the new bindery.

The facade of the bindery I apprenticed in Gelsenkirchen could also easily be adapted to the lot, and I have views that I can use to create the interior details regardless the facade. Rather than running on top of the bindery, the mainline runs above.

Bindery I apprenticed in 1985-87.

Should be a fun and relatively easy project to distract me from the main project of redoing the area around the turntable, finishing the Schrebergärten next to Posten 210..., and real bookish projects.

Tool Talk 1 - Fray Shield (Aufschabeblech)

 A looooooong time ago, not to long after I started this blog, I introduced the Aufschabebelch, a simple tool that one could purchase or make one's self. Below an image of it, also in use from 1806.

From plate II of Hendrik de Haas' De Boekbinder, 1806.
Fig 8. Het opvlas planje.
Fig 9. Het opvlasten der banden.
(PDF pg 174-76)

They were usually made of tin and the one I am most familiar with was shaped like in the image below. Why that shape and hole configuration? It's not explained, but is pretty much identical to the one I used as an apprentice in the mid 1980s.

From Paul Kersten's Die Buchbinderei und das Zeichnen des Buchbinders ...

(Halle a.d. Saale, 1909), plate 1.

Attaching the boards in the German Franzband tradition.
From from Wiese's Werkzeichnen für Buchbinder..., (Stuttgart, 1937).

Recently, I was invited to give a workshop on what I call the Ur-Bradel, the German Pappband structure that over the course of the centuries morphed into various flavors, often national, and of which all seem to have slightly different understandings. I won't get into those here, but in that structure, if the book was sewn on recessed cords, those cords were frayed out, paste was applied (often hide glue was applied to the guard (Ansetzfalz)), and then they were fanned out smoothly. The benefit was that this process resulted in sewing supports that were almost invisible under the endpapers when the book was done. That was the theory, because the extent to which the cords were frayed and fanned out varied by skill or time pressure.

The image below is from a cutaway model I making of one of these Ur-Bradels, ca 1800 and shows the cords frayed out and put down on the guard. The next step would be to attach the spine piece to the guard, then the boards, but I digress.

Fritz Otto did ok... Not atypical.

In the past I would have just teased the fibers of the cord apart with a needle then run them over a not to sharp paper/standard bookbinders' knife blade. Then I thought, perhaps Jeff Peachey could make me one. I sent him the image above and after a good bit of back and forth he sent me two prototypes to test out.

Fritz Otto showing off the two fray shield prototypes.
The shape is different from the one in German manuals... Will it matter?

Another view. The dimensions of the bottom one were what I asked for,
with a heavier steel used. The top, Jeff's reinterpretation.

In the end, I really liked Jeff's reinterpretation more.
You can even order your own from him now!

After teasing the fibers of the cord apart, they are slipped into
the notch and a bookbinders' knife are used to finish and make
them silky smooth.

Below a video in which I try out both to see which I liked better. There is no sound or narration.

As a surprise, Jeff even made one for Fritz Otto. He loved trying it out. Worked great, and he's glad to have it in his tool box.

Holding his "right-sized" Aufschabeblech.

Fraying out the cords...

Brushing the hide glue onto the guard...

Fanning out the frayed out cords on the guard.

UNESCO Recognizes Bookbinding as Cultural Heritage.

Bookbinding has been added to the Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage by the German UNESCO Commission 2021. The declaration calls out the role the bookbinding trade has had in ennobling the printed word in all its aspects, as well as preserving that record. While the images below call attention to the art of printing books, without bookbinders there would be no books. Printing was added to the Inventory in 2018. The bookbinder is always the last in the chain of production, and often overlooked in colophons and elsewhere, even in fine press books. No more! Image below featuring Bauer's 500 Jahre Buchdruckerkunst, 1440 - 1940 (500 Years of Book Production), and Fritz Otto, from the Pirckheimer-Gesellschaft's blog. The Bauer tunnel book is now part of RIT's Cary Graphic Arts Collection.

From the Pirckheimer-Gesellschaft's blog

Fritz Otto feels it is past time to correct this oversight in print, and is pushing to create a tunnel book on the theme of bookbinding. Hmmm, we'll see what we can do.

Bernie, Like Elvis, is Everywhere...

We all get to deal with "difficult" clients from time to time. It didn't help that I made Bernie wait in the cold, and that the fish skin box wasn't what he expected. Some days you can't win...

At least he was somewhat dressed for our Syracuse weather. Needs a hat.!

For those not familiar, Bernie Sanders made quite the appearance at President Joseph Biden's inauguration this past Wednesday. Here is the original picture of him in the visitors' seats, just a different view.

You can see the ever-increasing number of memes at Google. The knitting pattern for the mittens is on https://www.ravelry.com/, account required.

Packing and Shipping Art - An Adventure

 Martha Edgerton, book conservator and artist, was one of my first supervisors and mentors when I was a wet behind the ears and ahead of myself work-study student in the Department of Conservation and Preservation (1981-84) at Johns Hopkins. I've always admired her work so was happy to give Human Enclosure II, a powerful statement on the parallels of slavery and mass incarceration here in the United States, a home. It's been wonderful to keep the connection with her all this time. 

The work is part of a larger series about the Atlantic slave trade titled The Amazing Race: The Atlantic Slave Trade Through the Pages of Book Art acquired in part by Special Collections at Johns Hopkins' Sheridan Libraries along with other works by Martha. Back in 2017, I was able to see many of those works as part of a larger exhibit at the Libraries titled Freedom Where I Stand that included many historic documents along with works of art that spoke to those themes.

Josephine Baker in Freedom Where I Stand

In the online catalog for the exhibit. 
"The theater box represents the barracoons used to temporarily jail
captured Africans until enslavement and mid-Atlantic transport.
It also speaks to the subject of mass incarceration."

I purchased the piece from a large exhibit held in Baltimore at the Creative Alliance back in July. After the close of the exhibit it took a long time to get the work shipped, and then when it arrived it was damaged in transit. Talking with Martha, she asked to complete the needed conservation treatment and shipped it back to me. That was November 30th, and it took over 6 weeks to make it back to Syracuse. 

COVID is real! USPS is everywhere and its employees very exposed.
Value them, they are essential!

Martha had her assistant LuLu help secure the elements and pack it up. The two of them did a great job (Martha is a very good teacher). LuLu's small fingers were no doubt an asset and really able to get in there.

LuLu preparing it for its journey.
Little did we know how long.

So, for the same reason I asked Fritz Otto to unpack. No damage this time. 

It was nice to see everything supported and secured so well.

Big supports, but very light.

The right tools for the job.

Even little supports where they were needed.

Everybody needs a hand, sometimes.

Almost done.

All done. So glad there was no damage. Thank YOU LuLu.
Perhaps we'll have a chance to meet someday.

The work really makes you think about the Black lives destroyed by slavery and mass incarceration. We can and must do so much better.