Courses for 2012

I've posted classes which I'll be giving during the rest of this year.

When I was thinking of what classes to offer, it occurred to me (perhaps incorrectly) that no one offers classes in limp leather bindings, or single flexible.  Since I enjoy doing those bindings I thought I'd offer them as classes and see if anyone is interested in taking them.

I've come up with a way of making limp leather bindings that are more flexible than the traditional way and wanted an opportunity to share that with students.  Over the past year I've done 3 limp leather bindings, which is more than I ever expected I would.  Two of them were folks who were tired of how bonded leather bindings work.  Or don't.

The single flexible full calf binding class will also include ploughing in boards, which I've obviously done a video about.  It's a great binding.  Part of me thinks I'd like to just do them over and over again.  But then I might get a bit tired of.  Maybe.  Or not.

Also, I'm doing a limp vellum class.  That's the book to the left.  In that class there will also be time for some paper case bindings as well.  Should be fun.

There's also classes on box making, millimeter bindings, and several more.

I'm looking forward to them!

Here's the link:

http://www.pantherpeakbindery.com/Courses.html

Repairing and binding an old newspaper

I decided it's time to actually use the blog!  I've done quite a few interesting projects and think it is time to share some of them.  I have more video ideas to do, but am kind of waiting until I can get a better camera.

This week I finished working on the first issue of The Christian Science Monitor.  It was given to me to make usable again.  Though I don't have a picture of it, it was rolled up.  In fact it looked like it was rolled up the day it came out and never read.  A bit of a challenge, working on a newspaper which has been rolled up since 1908!

Obviously it had issues and challenges.  The main problem was flattening it without causing more problems.  The fold had abraded in the first three pages (it was six pages long).

I flattened it after immersing it in water and washed it a few times to lower the pH of the paper and then sized it to give the paper a bit more body.

Then I encapsulated the pages between two pieces of mylar, an inert plastic. It is floating between the sheets, and can be taken out at any time in the future without damaging the paper.

The advantage of this treatment is the the paper is fully readable, and can be handled without any further damage.

Here is the final product:

The pages in this were sewn together, instead of the more standard use of post screws.  I feel this is more secure and, since all the pages were there, I felt it was more important to make it difficult to separate the pages from each other.

From the pictures, the mylar looks distractingly shiny, but they're not and the paper can be easily read.  Needless to say it was a very fun project in many ways, not the least is working on something that large.

I have a more detailed description of the process used to preserve this newspaper in another blog post:

http://singleflexible.blogspot.com/2016/09/kennedy-newspaper-treatment.html

paste tubes

Here is a video of making paste and then storing it in sterilized tubes, which gives them a shelf life of several months.  It's a pretty amazing storage technique which solves the main challenge of paste, namely that it goes bad in just a few days. And it gets tiresome making paste all the time.

I think I'll work on the next one soon.  Check back.