More Sprayed and Stenciled Papers

Below a sample of Peka-Spritz-Papier made by Hübel & Denck in Leipzig from the article "Das Spritzverfahren in der Buchbinderei" by Paul Klein in the Buchbinderlehrling, 1928. I shared other papers using this technique by Hübel  & Denck from their Monatsblätter in this earlier post.

Steifbroschure (stiffened paper binding) by Amy Borezo on Ernst Collin's Bone Folder from the 2012 Bind-O-Rama, More examples including historical ones can be found by clicking on the steifbroschure label. Just scroll down.

Airbrushed Cave paper over boards; tipped on Tiziano endsheets;
unsupported link stitch. Dimensions: 21.5 x 13.8 x .8 cm.
In reading the text… I appreciated the discussion of the various kinds of decorated papers.
It inspired me to create my own decorated cover paper for this book using a metal bonefolder
 to score a geometric pattern into the paper, which I then folded, airbrushed, flattened,
and attached to the cover.

Amy wrote a short post on how she made the paper for Bonefolder Extras here. The second edition text of Ernst Collin's Bone Folder can also be freely downloaded laid out for binding using the link in the left sidebar.

Decorated Papers from Kersten's Exakte Bucheinband

Swatches of decorated papers and other materials were regular features of German bookbinding publications, whether books or journals. Below the swatches included with Paul Kersten's Der Exakte Bucheinband (1923), one of the iconic manuals focusing the Franzband (Extra binding with 90 degree joint and laced-on (usually) boards. The text appeared in multiple editions with the 1909 available in HathiTrust. Swatches there start on page 223.

Notice how the vendors for the papers are listed with/below the swatches, as well as what the paper the swatches are mounted on. This is allows the binder for whom the publications were written to know exactly where to procure them.

Title Page

Vorsatz (endpaper) and Überzug (covering paper).

Marbled papers.

More marbled papers of various kinds.

More endpapers.

A Bookbinder’s Journey 2 - Video Online

A Bookbinder’s Journey: My analog and virtual life in the book arts

48th Susan Garretson Swartzburg ’60 Memorial Book Arts Lecture
Lecturer: Peter D. Verheyen
Thursday, Oct. 17th, 2019
Wells College, Aurora, NY

Details at:
https://wellsbookartscenter.org/48th-susan-garretson-swartzburg-60-memorial-book-arts-lecturer-peter-d-verheyen/
 
Video below. Slides with notes here

Salmon Parchment Tests at UICB

A short video of the testing process on my salmon parchment conducted recently by Tim Barrett at the University of Iowa Center for the Book Research and Production Paper Facility.

So, how did the tests go? Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Bookbinding Materials wrote, "salmon skin is strong. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly strong it is."

TESTING REPORT
University of Iowa Center for the Book
Research and Production Paper Facility
October 17, 2019

P. Verheyen provided samples of goat skin parchment and fish skin parchment, both of about the same thickness.  An MIT Folding Endurance tester and an Elmendorf Tear tester were used to gather the reported data, although both are designed for evaluating the mechanical properties of paper, not parchment.  The two related TAPPI standard procedures used were T 511 and T 414.  The following important exceptions to the specified steps occurred during the tests:

1. None of the specimens were pre-conditioned or conditioned nor was testing done in a temperature and humidity controlled room. RH varied between 30 and 42%.
2. Only two strips of both parchments were subjected to fold tests and 13mm wide strips were tested rather than the specified 15mm wide strips. 
3. One ply of each parchment was used for the tear testing. 
4. Three fish skin parchment tear tests were attempted and all were disqualified because the required tears across the full width of the specimen were not possible due to the strength of the material.

Below the test results:

Material	Test	Tests	Final Averages
Fish Parchment	Fold	2	79,338 folds
	Tear	3, Disqualified	NA (Did not tear across full width due to strength)
Goat Parchment	Fold	2	12,015 folds
	Tear	6	784 gr/cm
UICB Flax Papercase Paper, circa 1992	Fold	60	4501 folds[1]
	Tear	60	828 gr/cm[2]

[1] Average from test strips cut in both the chainline and the cross-chainline directions.

[2] Average from test strips cut in both the chainline and the cross-chainline directions.

---

1: https://www.tappi.org/content/SARG/T511.pdf http://grayhall.co.uk/BeloitResearch/tappi/t414.pdf

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

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

"Fish Tales, experiments with fish skin for bookbinding

The New Bookbinder: Journal of Designer Bookbinders (2020)

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...

Thank you Bookbinder Barbie

Very glad to have had @bookbinderbarbie visit this summer – THE highlight in my studio.
Don't stop learning and binding, and keep in touch.

Honored to have won "Most bookbindery photo?" The NBSS knit hat will keep me toasty during our brutal Syracuse winters and in the slightly warmer studio.

View this post on Instagram

Woah, September flew by! School’s been keeping me super busy but I haven’t forgot my awesome adventures this summer. Sooooo time for some prizes! Photo with most likes? @jpatrician Silliest photo? @melaniemowinski Most bookbindery photo? @pdverheyen Thank you so much to everyone who hosted me!

A post shared by Barbie M. Roberts (@bookbinderbarbie) on Oct 4, 2019 at 10:13am PDT

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.

A Bookbinder’s Journey 2: My analog and virtual life in the book arts

A Bookbinder’s Journey: My analog and virtual life in the book arts

48th Susan Garretson Swartzburg ’60 Memorial Book Arts Lecture
Lecturer: Peter D. Verheyen
Thursday, Oct. 17th, 2019 — 6:00 p.m.
Wells College, Aurora, NY

Details at:
https://wellsbookartscenter.org/48th-susan-garretson-swartzburg-60-memorial-book-arts-lecturer-peter-d-verheyen/

Lecture poster by Leah Mackin,
with imagery derived from fish skin.

Decorated Papers

Recently received 3 years of bound volumes of the Archive für Buchbinderei, 1930-32.

1930 featured 2 tipped in decorated samples, one paste and one oil marbled.

"Hand painted" decorated paper from the workshop of Emma Gustorff,
Beuel a. Rh. (now  a part of Bonn).

Oil marbled paper from the Workshop of Alex Peltzer, Munich.

1931 was bound by a first year apprentice and covered with a paste paper of his own making.

Paste paper (and half-linen) binding by a 1st year apprentice.
No, the label was not adhered to the cover.

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)

"Fish Tales, experiments with fish skin for bookbinding

The New Bookbinder: Journal of Designer Bookbinders (2020)

Always Document Your Work and Keep Notes

Always photo-document your work and keep notes, no matter what career stage you're at. You never know when you'll refer back. Even Fritz Otto knows that.

Documenting his first go at making parchment from fish.

Fritz Otto Goes Fishing

Thanks to Fritz Otto, I'm able to dive into another round of making fish skin parchment and leather. Have three skins in this batch, one coho salmon, and two haddocks. He'll make parchment from one of the haddocks, and then "we'' egg-tan the other and the coho following Nienke Hoogvliet's instructions from her book Fish Leather, a by-product of her RE-SEA ME project. Will be nice to have two identical species to compare.

A few weeks ago, Fritz Otto skinned the fillets we got,
freezing the skins until we're ready. This is the coho.

Back at it, again, with haddock and cohoe salmon. Will try egg tanning with some. Added research for an article on #fishskinbinding. pic.twitter.com/crrhbVUlYf

— Peter D. Verheyen (@PressbengelProj) August 31, 2019

The skins were rinsed in unscented/un-dyed dish detergent to help remove oils.
This process was repeated a few times, the skins kept in the refrigerator in-between
to prevent decay.

Next I showed him how to remove any remaining fleshy bits
from the skin. 

He used a scalpel and scrapped away...

Tiring work he just wanted to hide after.
He said it was kind-of gross.
I gave him some space...

Reading up from Nienke Hoogvliet's instructions from her book Fish Leather

The skins are soaking in a Mason jar with the dish detergent again. Tomorrow we stake out the one haddock to make parchment, and then start the egg-tanning. Looks straight forward.

See Fritz Otto Goes Fishing 2 for the next steps.

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

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

"Fish Tales, experiments with fish skin for bookbinding

The New Bookbinder: Journal of Designer Bookbinders (2020)

Bookbinding Supplies | Buchbinderei-Bedarf, 1928

Below the 1928 Braunwarth & Lüthke catalog that gives a wonderful sense of the all the expendable supplies (paper, cloth, leather), hand tools, and equipment that a bookbinder of that time would have had available to them. Schmedt in Hamburg acquired Braunwarth & Lüthke 1990[ish] to give them a branch in Munich.

While not all items are depicted, where they are they can be a great aid to understanding terminology in foreign language manuals, especially in tandem with a resource like the Multi-lingual Bookbinding/Conservation Dictionary, https://bookbindingdictionary.com .

Braunwarth & Lüthke, München,
Braunwarth & Lüthke - Preis-Liste über Materialien, Werkzeuge, Beschläge,
Apparate und Maschinen für Buchbindereien und verwandte Branchen.1928.

Scanning all 138 pages with Fritz Otto's help.
No worries, the signatures were all loosely sew and the wrapper off, so no damage.

Complete tool sets for apprentices just starting out, and those more advanced.
Included were a bone folder, bookbinding knife, paring knife, scissors,
sewing needles, keys for securing raised cords in the sewing frame, a green linen apron.
The advanced included more of some of the tools and a divider.
Mk 14 and 17 respectively. (Page 42)

Everything needed to equip a small hand bindery.
Mk 1620 (Page 125)

View below or download here.

Syracuse Book Bindery

Something a bit closer to home from Syracuse's golden industrial past...

Thanks to a friend and colleague I got this great advertisement for the Syracuse Book Bindery of Jacob H. Miller. The ad is from 1867 and promotes services of all kinds in the "best manner, on short notice, and at low rates." I wonder how they managed it.

Syracuse Book Bindery of Jacob H. Miller, ca. 1867.

Good, cheap, or fast. You can really only have 2 of those.

I'm looking for a contemporary photo of the location at 23 & 24 Washington St, here in Syracuse, but nothing yet. This is what that location looks like now. While the current building is old, it in all likelihood looked more like the one below the Google Street View image.

Below a view of another bindery... from the 1850s, the site of the Jerry Rescue that was part  of Syracuse's abolitionist past. The location of this building is about 2 blocks away and more typical of the architecture of the time. The buildings name gives pause - perhaps an earlier location of our bindery?

The Jerry Rescue Building was located in Clinton Square
on the corner of Clinton Street and Water Street.
From the Syracuse Historic Walking Tour pages.

Fritz Otto Buchbinder

Needed a little help, alright a lot of help, in the studio, something that was very evident during Bookbinder Barbie's visit. We had fun, worked well together, and I was able to teach her about some of my favorite weird bookbinding proclivities like making parchment from fish skin. Most of what I learned from that experience was that working alone can be hard for any number of reasons.

That got me talking to some old connections in Germany, and through them learned about a very motivated and well-versed binder, Fritz Otto Buchbinder, who was looking for some new experiences. He's a Journeyman (Geselle) working towards his Meister, learned from some very good (and not so good) binders in the trade, and spent time at one of the few remaining art academies teaching binding. There are also a lot of under- and unemployed bookbinders around...

He arrived recently on the friendly skies of Lusthansa. They even managed to lose all his tools, save one. Ouch! To the rescue. the New World's best tool maker, Jeff Peachey who was able to outfit him with some of his finest tools. I was able to scare up some bone folders and Berlin-style brushes with the metal handle that he likes so much. The one tool he managed to save was the bone folder his Meister gave him as an apprentice. This Meister had gotten from the Meister of his Meisterin. Apparently it had guided a certain Franz through his career as a binder. There it is grinning from the pocket of his lab coat.

Fritz Otto Buchbinder with his Peachey Swiss paring knife.

The tool starter set, more will appear as they are needed and made.

Looking at paring knifes in the 1928 Braunwarth & Lüthke catalog.
Fritz prefers the Swiss and French styles of knives to the traditional German kind.
This is the result of bad experiences he had with the knife his Meister gave him –
Said it was a stumpfe Gurke... (dull cucumber).

Fritz is already getting lost in the Fachbibliothek. He's glad to find his familiar
German manuals, but is also very interested in what he can learn from the
English (and other) ones. I'm sure his English will improve quickly.

Fritz was blown away to see this binding from the "golden age" of German binding,
the period between the World Wars.

Examining a "Dorfner-style" open joint binding on the print-on-demand version of
Ernst Collin's The Bone Folder (Der Pressbengel).

I look forward to having Fritz Otto in the studio with me, teaching him things as well as learning from him. He's curious, loves exploring the old binding manuals and trade publications. Mostly, I'm sure he'll get me binding more. I'll also be glad for his help working on the layout and running the trains.

A Fish Skin Rug

I was recently made aware of Studio Nienke Hoogvliet, "a design studio for material research, experimental and conceptual design based in The Hague, The Netherlands. The studio was founded in 2013 with a focus on "raising awareness of social and environmental problems in the textile, leather and food industry."

In her project SEA ME she researches how seaweed can contribute to a more sustainable textile industry. RE-SEA ME focuses on the applications of fish skin. She also published a book describing her method of preparing skins without chemicals. Based on the video this looks like she is making parchment, a topic dear to my heart. The book costs $75 including shipping to the US. Can't wait to get my copy and wish I had a rug like she made. Perhaps I need to make my own.

RE-SEA ME is the continuation of SEA ME. To show the duality between plastic waste in the oceans and the sustainable materials the oceans have to offer, Nienke continued her search for materials out of the sea. She discovered that fish skins are a waste product of the fishing industry, while you can also make them into beautiful leather.

She went to fish shops to collect their waste and discovered a way of tanning the skins without any chemicals. By using an old technique, that requires a lot of manual labour, she created a strong, sustainable and beautiful material that can be used like regular leather. To show the abilities of the leather, Nienke designed a small stool with fish leather seating. To continue the SEA ME collection, she also designed a conceptual rug where the fish leather is sown into a discarded fishing net.

RE-SEA ME from Studio Nienke Hoogvliet on Vimeo.