This article is about a leather spine reback where the original spine was reused in the repair. This little 18th century volume arrived with its front cover detached. The edges of its covers were quite worn and spongey and it lacked its original spine label.It is often near-impossible to remove the spine intact on these […]
This article is about a book restoration carried out on a notebook owned by the artist John Constable. One of the most absorbing projects that I’ve worked on recently is the book restoration of a 19th century notebook. This book of handwritten notes was reputedly owned and compiled by the artist John Constable. The book, […]
This article is about Bible repair, leather spine restoration and corner repair and restoration. It’s over a year since I last added anything to this work diary and 2016 was a very busy year. A wide selection of books both antiquarian and modern passed through the bindery for restoration or repair. These ranged from treasured […]
This article is about resewing a broken text block, leather book restoration and corner repair. This 18th century copy of Boyer’s English-French Dictionary was once owned by a direct ancestor of it’s current owner. The book arrived with the text block split into 5 sections. The spine was pretty much worn away and both covers […]
This article is about a Victorian leather-bound photograph album repair. The 3rd of my ‘most satisfying jobs of 2015’ was to work on this late 19th century family photograph album. The album had been compiled by it’s elderly owner’s grandfather. It had suffered the ravages of time. Pages had come loose and the covers and […]
This article is about the leather spine reback of a two-volume set. The original spine tooling design was closely copied on the new spines. Another job that came in over the summer was a magnificent two volume quarto-sized edition of Pope’s Works. The set was bound in contemporary full panelled calf with a full gilt […]
This article describes a corner repair and leather reback to an 18th century book. I’ve just completed quite a satisfying corner repair and leather reback. It’s a good example of what is possible when the corner of a volume has been badly damaged. This copy of ‘Hoyle’s Games’ dating from around 1760 came in for […]
This article is about the spine restoration and creation of facsimile pages on a 1626 edition on Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Over December, I’ve been working on a fairly collectable, but slightly bereft copy of Ovid’s Metamorphosis dating from 1626. This copy had been rebound in the early 19th century with a fairly unnatractive spine. The front […]
This is an article on leather spine rebacking where the original style of gold tooling was replicated onto the new leather spine. Rebacking the spine of a crudely repaired 18th century leather binding Soon after I started repairing the 1575 edition of Caesar’s Commentaries, a damaged 18th century edition arrived at my workshop. As with […]
This article details the repalcement of an old leather spine repair. The old repair had failed and the book required a new spine. This was tooled in gold in a style contemporary with the leather-bound covers. I completed the 1575 Caesar’s Commentaries some time ago, but haven’t got around to posting an update on the […]