Fritz Otto Thinks About Portfolios

While looking at all the Warwick Press books, Fritz Otto noticed this small and elegant (right-sized) portfolio with flaps protecting one of them in the Once Upon a Time series (at right).

Most of the Warwick Press collection.

What interested him in particular is proportionate and elegant the flaps were. Here was only really familiar with ones made of binders board that required multiple pieces and were covered in several steps. They also never seemed to fit the item that well, especially smaller/thinner ones. This is a great solution. Can't remember where I learned it, might have been from Bill Minter in Chicago.

Here's a link to the handout I created for PRT552, Book Arts, that I taught at Syracuse University in 2007.

Opening the portfolio. The flaps are made of book cloth and paper that
have been glued together and when dry, cut to size and folded to fit.

Opening the portfolio and removing Once Upon a Time, vol 4.

He really likes the way the flaps look and work.

Hmmmm...

Definitely like it...

Thank you for showing me. Instructions for making these are where...?
Ah-ha, the handout is here.

Fritz Otto Makes a Box with Lid (Kasten mit Hals)

As we saw in Fritz Otto Says Be Safe, he is working on keeping his bench skills sharp.

Here he is making a box with lid to be covered in salmon parchment.  He's following instructions from Fritz Wiese's Sonderarbeiten des Buchbinders. The book was bound by Altmeister Arno Werner and is from his collection. The fish monger's wife brought the raw skin of the fish over requesting a small box for jewelry... Let's see what we can up with for her, especially since she also dropped of a 70+cm salmon skin to make into parchment.

Fritz Otto is going to make the variant on the left.
The diagram shows a cross section of the components and how they're covered.

Fritz Otto redeeming himself after miscutting the boards for box.
The Meister was demonstrating in a live FB feed and was most embarrassed...
Because parchment is so transparent, Fritz Otto painted the exterior
of the box black first. Then he glued the parchment onto the sides,
 and is now paring shark leather to go on the ends. It was a small salmon fillet.

Here he is edge-paring the shark leather.

One shark leather panel is on at the top of the box, next he'll glue on the other.
When done, he'll put felt on the base, something that'll also hide the turn-ins.

Here he test fitting the panels that will go inside the box that will create "neck"/Hals
that will keep the lid in place. They are made from card stock and covered fully
on one side and turned in enough on the other to cover the "neck."
You can see that he has already pre-folded the salmon for the lid.

Pieces going in as they should... So far so good.

Everything fits... Good!
Long sides first, then short sides between those during final assembly.

Getting ready to glue the salmon onto the sides of the box.

Almost done with the turn-ins.

Test fitting the lid. If you click on the picture, you can see the join for the "neck."
This way of creating the "neck" is pretty simple. There are more complex ways
to cover the box that wouldn't show cut edges.

Lid fits, and the shark and salmon go together well.

Not bad...

Can't deliver to fish monger's wife yet. Still need to put paper on
the inside of the lid's sidewalls, and then some felt on the base.

Fritz Otto Says Be Safe

Fritz Otto is playing it safe, saying at home, and keeping his bench skills sharp. In this case, he's making a box with lid to be covered in salmon parchment.  He's following instructions from Fritz Wiese's Sonderarbeiten des Buchbinders. The book was bound by Altmeister Arno Werner and is from his collection.

Sonderarbeiten des Buchbinders as bound by Arno Werner

Lunch Instead of Fish Skin Binding

Back before Christmas, Fritz Otto was on vacation in Greece (aka Wegmans like any good fisherman) and caught a bunch of sardines. Finally, a right-sized fish he could work from start to finish for his own binding(s).

Today, pulled them out of the freezer to practice his flaying skills...

Catch of the day.

Filleting was the easy part.

The Peachey lifting knife was great!

Filleting was the easy part, but alas, the skin was too thin to get off. He also tried pulling it off of the intact fish but that was even less successful. Alas..., nothing left to do but make lunch for himself.

Just fried in a little olive oil with pepper. Didn't need more for a tasty meal.

Rülps! (How Germans Burp) That was delicious!

So, defeated in making parchment, successful in preparing a meal.

To learn more about making parchment from fish, see
"Fips" and His Eels: Fish Skin in Bookbinding

Book Arts arts du livre Canada (Vol 10., Nr. 2, 2019)

Fritz Otto Doing a Colored Edge and Endband

↣ Happy New Year 2020! ↢

Here's hoping we don't go too full-on Weimar,

but some bindery projects will help keep us sane, maybe.

Coloring the freshly plowed top-edge using a paste paper technique.

I think I'm liking the effect!

Next, I add some shape and crispness to the rolled leather endband.

And, a little more in that spot...

OK, that's done. What's next?

Holy Mackerel!

Fritz Otto's latest adventure. As usual, he only gets to do the dirty, thankless tasks, never the whole thing. At least the eatin' was good...

Making sure the implements of destruction are all ready.
I got sent out of the room, and didn't get to watch the de-skinning or stretching...

Inspecting the skins. Brrr, it's cold in the basement studio this time of year.

Oh, great... I get to scrape away the nasty, left-over fleshy stuff... Gross!

Detail of the grossness. The Peachey lifting knife is great for scraping this stuff off.
Some day I better get my own fish to skin, prepare, eat, and use on a binding.
Better be worth it.

 Broiled with salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and pine nuts – it was wonderful!

See also "Fips" and His Eels: Fish Skin in Bookbinding

Book Arts arts du livre Canada (Vol 10., Nr. 2, 2019)

Marbling

I'm not a real user of marbled papers, let alone a marbler. I did, however, marble with oil paints before learning to make my real love of paste papers during my internship at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg (1984). We also marbled once with water colors on a carragheen. After my return to Baltimore to finish college, I made some more marbled papers that I used on some of my early bindings. I think I marbled once more in the late 80s, but that was it... My expectations for thus upcoming foray are rather low, that way I won't be disappointed.. ;-)

Not sure what I was thinking here... It was my 1984 internship and early days.
Binding covered in water color marbled paper, housed in a slipcase marbled with oil paints.

Box made (1984) of scored and folded board edged in cloth with oil marbled paper sides.
Technique is described in Franz Zeier's Schachtel, Mappe, Bucheinband (Books, Boxes, and Portfolios),
My first manual, and still a favorite!

Fritz Wiese's Der Bucheinband as an Edelpappband
(millimeter binding), one of the first structures I learned. I bound this one on
my own in 1985 between internship and heading back to Germany for my apprenticeship.

Gabrielle Grünebaum's Bunterpapiervbook bound during my apprenticeship, ca 1986.

My notes from Nuremberg (1984) with samples of my first forays into marbling tipped-in,
my first book on basic marbling for hobbyists covered in my own paper, and oil paints,
and other marbling supplies I bought years ago to try my hand at it again. Instead of
dropping the paints on water, I learned to use a very dilute paste water (very thin cream)
that gave more control over the colors in terms of making patterns.
I think I'll use methylcellulose.

Fritz Otto checking things out and hoping he gets included in the party...
Still some supplies to get. We'll probably do this over Christmas break
when all will be home for two weeks+!

Latest Salmon Parchment

Used my last piece of salmon parchment to have it tested for fold and tear strength, so had to make a new one. Note the translucency! So glad Wegman's has salmon fillets in a family size. Good to have Fritz Otto around to hold it up for photography...

See also "Fips" and His Eels: Fish Skin in Bookbinding

Book Arts arts du livre Canada (Vol 10., Nr. 2, 2019)

Fritz Otto Gets Ready for the Week

Fritz Otto says a professional always makes sure their Kittel (lab coat) is clean and crisply ironed to start the week... This tacking iron is almost the right size, still need a proper ironing board though.

Fritz Otto washes, bleaches, and irons his lab coat every weekend, well almost every weekend. 

Below, the workshop of the Kunstgewerbeschule Hamburg under the direction of Professor Kurt Londenberg, former student of Ignatz Wiemeler. From the December "Bilderbeilage" of the Allgemeiner Anzeiger für Buchbindereien, [after 1957]. Note the nice crisp lab coats. 

Fritz Otto Goes Fishing 2

In the last installment, Fritz Otto Goes Fishing, our hero prepared the fish skin for making parchment, but also trying something new, egg tanning. We're following Nienke Hoogvliet's instructions from her book Fish Leather. Ready? Here we go! Fritz Otto is glad @bookbinderbarbie left copies of her notes.

Taking one of the haddock and stretching it out to make parchment.
We'll compare with the egg tanned haddock.

All right, that's done. Now to let it dry.

 

Now, on to the egg tanning!

Why do I always get the grunt work? Beat the egg, oil, detergent mixture until smooth.

Next, tamp the haddock and salmon so that they are not dripping wet.

At least I didn't have to drop the skins into the egg/oil
mixture to then massage it into the skins until warm.
That looked totally gross!

But, wait! I get roll up the slimy skins so that they can sit for about 15 minutes.

Now we hang them up to drip-dry.
When dry, they'll still feel oily/slippery, and we'll need to massage and work them to
loosen up the fibers in the skin. We do that for a week.

Here they are a week later. Time to rinse in soapy water until they
feel soft and not oily/slippery.

Rinse, and rinse some more...

Let drip-dry. We tamped with a paper towel again, too.

Then, dump them into a more dilute mixture, work in, and set out to dry.

We smoothed them out to dry on a piece of plexi-glass,
scale-side down. That gives them a shinier appearance.
When they were dryish, we worked them back and forth
over a smooth dowel, always with the flesh side to the dowel.
Finally, we worked it like leather before paring.

Take out the pins and liberate the haddock parchment. Next we'll compare.

Comparing the haddocks – parchment at the bottom, egg tanned at top.
The egg tanned is like parchment, but much shiner and more
transparent. Not sure how we feel about that... The whitish patches are
fleshy stuff that will need to be scrapped off with a scalpel later.
The haddock is much more thin-skinned than the salmon.

See what I mean by transparent and shiny?

And here the egg tanned salmon. Less translucent than the salmon parchment that was made
 when @bookbinderbarbie was here over a month ago. Softer too, but not supple like leather.
Still. looks and feels really interesting. Wonder if we'll make anything with it?

 

Click here to see where this fishy adventure started.

See also "Fips" and His Eels: Fish Skin in Bookbinding

Book Arts arts du livre Canada (Vol 10., Nr. 2, 2019)