As mentioned in my previous post on the Eagle comics, Monday was the first day back at the V&A, and thankfully I was given the nice straight forward task of box making to start the year. The V&A boxes are not like those we worked on at MODA, which we made from scratch, these are almost entirely made for you before you start!
Having measured the books, the measurements are then put into the box making machine, and the boxes are cut flat as the image shows. The first step is then to put the rivets onto the edges, these are so that the box can be tied shut. The museum has an amazing machine that presses the rivets all together with a foot peddle – its so simple!
Then the string goes in which will tie onto the rivets, and then the two layers of boxes are adhered together with EVA and pressed to dry.
They are then folded and ready for the books! As I said, a super nice start to the year, and very therapeutic! Once I had done these, I was then doing some minor cover repairs on a couple of books that are going to be part of the Golden Spider Silk exhibition – I can’t say I enjoyed looking at these books, though I could appreciate the excellent hand painted drawings, however being of spiders, they did give me the shudders!
