Today, I'm finishing up a repair on a bible for an elderly woman, who drops things a lot. Especially, her scriptures. They took it to a guy to have it fixed and he fixed it, and then the cover of the book fell off again after another dropping. They called me to see if I could fix it and I stopped by to pick it up from them in Manti while I was at the temple there. The lady said she had 60 great grandchildren. WOW! I know it's silly, but my first thought was, "that's a lot of birthday cards to send out each year."
This photograph of the Manti Temple below was taken by my Father in Law, Jim Heywood. You can see more of his photos Here.
Just a few tips to everyone who wants to know how to repair a broken book.
#1- DO NOT use a brittle glue. Books are meant to be opened and therefore need a flexible glue to allow the book to open without the spine breaking. It's also a good idea to use an archival glue that will not eat away at the spine and pages of your book. I use Jade 403 which is a PVA based glue. It dries clear, it's very flexible and it is archival.
#2- DO NOT use an acidic tape to try and tape the book back together, especially, Athletic tape. It's acidic and will actually eat away at the spine and cover of your book. If you want to use a tape, you can use a bookcloth tape which is archival and meant for the spines of books.
In doing the bible, the man who had "repaired" the book before, had done the two DO NOTS and I had to fix his mistakes. It's really difficult to scrape off woodglue from the spine in order to salvage it (all you conservationists are gasping...I can hear you)
The athletic tape had eaten away at the cover of the book and one of the endpapers had to be cut out completely. Not savable but it was ugly any how. I'll post more about repairing the book when it's complete.
I've been really busy with ideas lately. In fact, I've done so much planning in my mind that I probably have looked like a lazy bum the last few days. I don't have anything to show for it yet but I'm excited about doing a few artbooks.
2 comments:
Sounds like you're getting a few commissions to repair books now. It would be so interesting to see pictures of the process - do you have any to post?
Congratulations on having your book selected for the Naked Book Show. Fab!
No photos. Maybe I'll do my own scriptures and post pictures of that repair since it will be pretty intensive.
I hope to get several shows going this year with my books and I hope to continue to do small shows like the ones at Sandy23.
We'll see if it actually happens though ;)
I'm so glad you read my blog lizzie :)
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