Bling and Leather in 4 days.

 

My biblionautic chums and friends.

Yesterday, Sunday August the 18th, was the fourth and therefore the last day of the four day special workshop in quarter leather case binding.

The two students were beginners, okay one of the students had made a single section book before.... but in the main both were complete beginners.

To put things into context, they are bibliophiles with a love for the book with a desire to learn more about the book, the making, material use and, this was important for them, to work with leather.

After discussion, I was talked in to creating a special workshop for them. Initially we decided on on a half leather, rounded and backed case binding. This was later modified due to time and experience to a quarter leather binding.

As with many things we started at the beginning with a sheet of paper. We discovered grain direction (as I mentioned earlier the students were complete beginners) and other properties of paper, history with examples of early European papers, development of structures and other stuff. We went on to fold sections from SRA1 sheets of paper, made endpapers, marking up for sewing etc etc etc. Rounding and backing, by way of an introduction to leather work I demonstrated paring leather so that we could make leather end bands, nothing in a kit form, all as it comes form my suppliers. By the end of the 2nd day we had our text blocks ready for the case to be made.

Let the leather be brought forth!

To be honest dear reader, I thought that if we did have an area that would provide a hic-up this would be it. Learning about leather takes time and if the students were to have problems in edge paring then we had agreed that I would do it for them, have I mentioned that the students were complete beginners? We need not have worried, after one hour, or so, of practise with round bladed paring knives I felt confident enough with their newly gained skills to be let loose on the leather for their bindings. The final paring, considering that they had only one hour of learning how to edge pare, hold the knife, understand how leather moves when being worked with etc etc, were more than satisfactory.

With the leather on the spine and boards, along with false raised cords, head caps and the like by the end of the third day, the 4th and final day led us to finishing in foil and blind.

Once again, the students practised. Embracing the three aspects of finishing... Dwell, temperature and pressure. Combination foil work and blind tooling (wet). By lunch time the bling was on the bindings.

After lunch a relaxed atmosphere reigned in the studio. We looked at various papers for the sides. I began so show traditional marbled papers from a plan chest, it was then that one of the students saw the corner of a sheet of my flottage paper. She enquired as to what it was... I brought out a few sheets, then some more, finally all of what I had. They both decided to side their cases with my decorated paper! How wise, I thought of them, to combine the traditional with the contemporary.

Finally the casing in. Then a sit in the sun and a relaxed chat as the books were pressed.

An intensive 4 days, I feel I must add that all the work on the books is by the students themselves. I demonstrate all steps in the making and, as my students will testify, I do not touch the students work, they learn and apply.... not just wait for the tutor to do it for them. I suppose I am a little old school in that respect.

I would like to thank my suppliers, Harmatan Leather https://www.harmatan.co.uk/leathers/leathers.html Harmatan and Oakridge Leathers Ltd, John Purcell Papers https://www.johnpurcell.net/ and F J Ratchford https://ratchford.co.uk/. Thanks guys, having top materials to work with makes all the difference. And dear reader, before you ask.. no ... I am not on a discount or percentage deal with my suppliers, I just feel that they should be recognised.

As a tutor I found the 4 days (over two weekends) to be rewarding in so many ways. The students? Well, I guess they were pleased with their first books, I know I was.

Please note.... there are other suppliers, studios/binderies/ doing stuff, spelling and grammar. Please further note, the opinion of the author may change at any moment. This is due to having an open mind of sorts.