Throwing up

A client brought a book by which had some paper damage.  It was a quarter leather with a nideggen tipped on end sheet.

The problem was that several of the pages towards the front of the book had broken a few millimeters out from the spine.  If you look closely you can see the place where the page had broken.  The paper was very brittle. 

But, even with the brittle paper and real issue was the binding.  And here's why.

Spines on books generally need to flex.  The amount that a spine flexes is called "throwing up," as in "how much does the spine throw up?" Maybe this came from drunken bookbinders, I don't really know.

This movement is regulated by how many paper linings are glued onto the spine before the covers are put in place. But it can be more clearly demonstrated by these two bindings.

This is a Coptic binding, which has no paper linings on the spine.

 

Without any linings the spine can flex completely back onto itself, as seen in this photograph.  This is actually a great thing for the paper, but not so good for the sewing.  All the stress of the opening is on the thread, but there is no stress on the paper at all.

Now take a look at this binding. Clearly with a wooden spine there is no possibility of the spine flexing at all.

As a result when the book is opened it is only the paper that moves in order to open the book.  This is good for the sewing, but is not good for the paper.  To look at the pages the paper needs to be pulled open, especially when the paper doesn't drape very well.  Paper drape has a lot to do with the grain direction of the paper and how thin it is. Bible paper drapes really well because it is so thin.  Heavier papers can still drape well if the grain direction is parallel to the spine of the textblock.

One likes a balance of the two, as in this picture.  But the key to this is that one needs to consider both the qualities of the paper and the type of binding when deciding how many linings to put on a spine when putting a book together.  With brittle paper you want the binding that flexes almost as much as the Coptic binding shown above to reduce stress on the paper.  Without enough "throwing up" the pages will just snap off like the pages in the book I was working on.  With good, flexible paper, where the grain is going in the proper direction, one can make a binding that's a bit tighter which can be good for the sewing and the binding.

It can be seen as a graph showing the relationship between spine throwing up and stress on paper. The challenge is to know where to end up with the finished book to best serve both elements.  When deciding where to end up on this graph the whole consideration needs to be on the paper, its strength, its flexibility, its grain direction, and how well it drapes.

Finally, here is a picture of the spine of the book that I was working on.  See how the spine doesn't flex at all?  Did you get that the paper was extremely brittle?  What they have done with this book is to pretty much insure that the book is going to break one page at a time along the stress point of the paper, which is a few millimeters up from the spine edge of the textblock. 

I would argue that the binder destroyed the book in slow motion by over lining the spine.  They also repaired tears along the first four or five pages, which means they were aware of the condition of the paper. But the material they used to repair the paper was too heavy which just exacerbated the problem. The pages were tearing along the repair, where they should have used a thinner material and extended the repair paper further out from the spine to support the paper beyond its stress point.

I told the client to get rid of the book if they can, it's only going to get worse.  It could be conserved and saved, of course, but the first step would be to get rid of the binding, properly repair the pages and do a better job of putting it together.  As always, it would have been cheaper and better just to do it right the first time.

Sometimes it's better to hire a conservator instead of a binder. Or sometimes a binder needs to make better decisions. 

A clever method of using a Kensol or Kwikprint

A guy took a class from me a year or so ago, not that long after I acquired the Kensol.  He had used a Kensol in his job and showed me a clever way of aligning stamping on covers of book. It works equally well with a Kwikprint.  These pictures were taking using this method on the Kwikprint.

First you finish the cover on which you want to stamp and measure its thickness using a caliper.

Next you select a board (or lamination of boards) to equal the thickness of the cover.

Once you have that figured out, and it needs to be almost exactly the same thickness for this to work, you cut the non-covered piece so it's about the same size as the cover.

Now you put the board in the stamping machine (again, it works equally well for the Kwikprint and the Kensol) and tape a piece of mylar along the edge of the table.

Put the die or title in the machine and stamp it onto the mylar.

You'll end up with this.

One the cover you are stamping place a paper image of the die, or a line of paper or tape if you are doing a title (or really anything will work if it shows where on the cover you want the stamping to end up).

I'm using this example because the image on the die isn't in the proper orientation to the cover, which makes this a better example.  The image in the circle is upright (as shown on the mylar) but I want it to be slanted somewhat to the right.

To compensate for the alignment of the image on the die block I neeed to twist the cover until the mylar was seated directly over the paper image.  When it was I clamped the cover onto the table.

When it's all lined up and the book is clamped in position remove the mylar and stamp the cover.

It's a great technique and may be very well known but I had never seen it.  It's really fun to learn stuff like this from students.

Happy stamping.




Related posts on using the Kensol and Kwikprint can be found here:

Title stamping with a Kensol

Kensol vs. Kwikprint

web hosting comparisons, or stop throwing money away

Simplicity is a wonderful thing.  There's so much in life to grab our attention and time and finding simple solutions can be like a breath of fresh air.  Sometimes it can even save money, like when you buy both popcorn and a drink at a movie and save a buck.  That’s when you know society has reached its zenith.

The popular trend in websites has been web based programs like Squarespace, Wix or Weebly. There are several others as well.  I think they are popular because they are simple for two reasons.  One, they rely on templates so there is no need to figure out how you want your site to look.  Secondly, they require you to place your site on their hosting service.  Often there is no charge to create your site, instead they charge for making the site available to the world.

Now, everyone has their own motivations, points of view, and priorities. Thus they make different decisions. I suppose that’s part of what makes life so much fun and so diverse.

When I had to rebuild my site when Freeway went out of business I looked into many options.  I did the same test I had done when I went to Freeway, I spent two hours on various programs and saw how intuitive they were, what they could and could not and considered their cost.

I was not interested in a template driven site because it seemed much more work fitting my site into someone else’s vision.  I think both iWeb and Freeway had made me crave total control over my site, something that a template could never provide.

I experimented with Blocs, which seemed like it was half template driven in that one built a site by adding blocks of content onto a page.  Nice idea, but not for me even though it is pretty modifiable, if that’s a word. RapidWeaver was template driven.  Wordpress seems popular because so many people use it, not because it’s all that great. Or so it seemed, at least when I wasn’t reading about how its security had more holes in it than Swiss cheese.

As I wrote a few weeks back I found Sparkle which didn’t take two hours to figure out it was perfect for me.  It has free templates available but they are not necessary and I think they are available because some people feel they them.  After about fifteen minutes I had it mostly figured out, it was really no different than creating a Pages or Keynote document.

But then I looked into the cost of web based programs and stand alone programs.  Not because I was going to consider Squarespace and the others but I wondered how much folks were paying for their simplicity.  It ends up that it’s like paying triple for a popcorn/soda combo in exchange for a sense of ease.

But, to me, it’s not more simple than Sparkle at all unless you have a complicated site with lots of e-commerce. Selling a couple of things is pretty simple, like this site: http://kralikarna.com/A/  But if you have a site like Hewit where you are selling a couple of hundred items you would need something more complex than Squarespace as well. 

The real cost of a stand alone program is that you need to find your own hosting site.  I’ve been using MeccaHosting for ten years now.  It did take about five minutes to figure out where and how to post the site.  I know friends who run screaming when they have to learn one more thing to make their phone do something, but the savings in taking that five minutes can be substantial.

But maybe that’s the question:  what are you willing to do in order to use a self standing program which is easier to use than a template but that requires you to spend five or ten minutes finding and setting up a hosting site?  

The cost breakdowns are below.  I selected the hosting options which were most comparable with my needs and what I'm getting currently with my program and hosting site.

Sparkle & MeccaHosting

Sparkle does not come with attached web hosting. Sparkle is $80. MeccaHosting (whose support is as fast as Sparkle, meaning they almost answer before you hit “send” on your question) charges $5 a month for hosting and $2.50 for email. There is no question that Sparkle updates will add some to this expense over five and ten years.

The numbers:

Year 1:                              $170  (80 for Sparkle;  60 hosting;  30 email)      

Year 2:                               $90  (60 hosting;  30 email)                                             

After five years:                 $440                                                                             

After ten years:                  $985                                                           

Squarespace

This is template driven and one uses their hosting service in exchange for the program.  I chose the level that I would need for my business site.  Email is, I think, 50 a year.

Year 1:                               $266  (216 hosting; 50 email)    

                                                                       

After five years:                 $1330                                                                                  

After ten years                    $2660                                                                                   

Wix

Same as Squarespace. Templates, need to use their hosting service.  Email is also 50 a year.

Year 1                                $254 (204 hosting; 50 email)     

After five years:                 $1270                                     

After ten years:                  $2540                                 

Weebly

Templates, need to use their hosting service.  I think it includes email.

Year 1                                 $300 hosting                                                                             

After five years                   $1550                                                                 

After ten years                    3000                                                                

I find all these questions interesting.  A bit of a personality flaw, I'm afraid.  Personally, if I can have more creative freedom with less effort and can save a chunk of money at the same time, well, that’s for me.  Clearly others have divergent views, and good on them! 

For me, I’d rather spend my money on a vacation.  


My post on finding a new web design program can be found by clicking here.