paper repairs Archives - The Book Hut

March 14, 2012March 27, 2024

There’s nothing like new tools!

I have been remiss in my writing and musings and am ashamed! However, after a lovely weekend seeing lots of friends and visiting Dorset and Devon, I have returned with a new boost of energy and am determined to get back on track!

Whilst in Dorset, The Man and I had a peruse through a great little market in Bridport, which I think is there every Saturday. It was the sort of place that has excellent tool stands – stands that sell all the tools you will never find anywhere else, and indeed I bought three items that I haven’t found in any other tool shops – amazing! So here they are and the contact details for everyone else who also can’t find them!

A friend told me this was an architects ink pen, which sounds about right, as I knew it was an architects tool. I will be using it for paper repairs – when dipped in water the nib will hold the water and it can be dragged across the tissue to make an accurate water line to tear across. Up until now I have been using a japanese water pen, which is good though not so accurate. I’ll need practice using this though! This was £3.00 from Topper Antiques, unfortunately his website does not seem to work, but he can be found on 07779534170.

This is something that I know all my colleagues will want as it was a tool used by our board attachment instructor to bore holes into the shoulders of books to form joint tackets. I think hers was from Italy, so great to find them here – it’s called an archimedes drill and I will be using it with the micros drill set below. Both of which came from Andy’s Tool Shed, Andy doesn’t have a website, but does have an email address and is now expecting lots of calls!

December 2, 2011March 27, 2024

Making Solvent Set Tissue

Today was the final lecture from our visiting tutor who has been teaching us board reattachment. For her final instalment, we looked at solvent set tissue, which is not completely dissimilar to gelatine set tissue, and can also cross over into the heat set tissue theme as well – a multifunctional tool!

The reasons for using solvent set tissue, are twofold, the first being to be used when a book has such sensative leather that to get any paste or anything containing water would cause darkening – this form of paper repair is completely water free and therefore at no threat of causing this. The second key use is speed, as once set up, the process can be much quicker than using paste and tissue. It does have its downfalls as well, which is why it might not be used all the time – it is more permanent than wheat starch paste, if it gets erectly onto the leather rather than the repair tissue, it cannot be removed.

So the technique is as follows:

Initially tone some tissue in preparation for it to be pasted onto
Get the equipment ready, including a squeegee, a small screen print tray and a water trough to cover them both once used – the adhesive is extremely quick to dry and will not come off once stuck.
Humidify the toned tissue.
Lay the frame onto a sheet of melinex – this is what the adhesive will end up on.
Paste out small batches of adhesive along one edge of the screen and squeegee evenly over the rest of the frame.
Once evenly spread, remove the frame and lay out the toned tissue, ensuring a flat surface.
Allow to dry.
This can then be stored for future use.
When using, reactivate with solvent.

The adhesive used is called Lascoux and is an Acrylic glue. It is of the same family as PVA, though unlike PVA, it is completely non-reversable once dried. It is possible to reactivate the adhesive with solvent once dried, though it will not remove it, just make it sticky again. It is this method that is used to reactivate the adhesive on the tissue when you want to use the tissue on a book.

November 24, 2011March 27, 2024

Essays, Letters and Poems 1781, vol 2

Having toned some japanese tissue for my repairs to the cover of this book, the next steps were able to happen in conjunction in one another, and I have been working on them steadily. Unfortunately it was at these following points where some hiccups occurred. My colleagues tell me that you learn more if you make mistakes to begin with, though I can’t help feeling a little disappointed in myself.

Having discussed various options with my tutors, we decided that I would remove the spine of the book as it is severely deteriorated and crumbling away. It would also give me practice in spine removal. If this book was of great importance, it is unlikely the spine would be removed and would be worked around. In order to save the spine, I used a Klucel G gel to adhere a strip of japanese tissue, this way, when lifting the spine, it will remain in tact and can be pasted back on again once I have completed the reback.

Unfortunately, this was the first thing that went wrong, as the spine was so deteriorated, it was not lifting and instead was crumbling rather than coming off in one piece. This meant that having got what meagre bits off that I could, the remainder of the spine would have to be lifted with a poultice and would be unsalvageable.

So I started a full spine removal with the hope of using methyl cellulose, but realised once I started to make it that it would have to be left for 24 hours, and unfortunately on the following day, it was much too runny and adding more methyl cellulose meant waiting another 24 hours. It was at this point I moved on to a wheat starch paste poultice, which I found worked well.

Then came the second fiasco, having removed the spine, it became apparent that the first two cords had come loose and the sewing, completely eroded, making all the sections loose at this point and the text bock began to split. Rather than resew the book, my tutor decided that it would be better to paste down the cords and hold it together whilst they dried, therefore keeping it together, almost like the modern perfect binding (a ridiculous name given the technique).

At the same time that all these problems were occurring, I was also able to consolidate the corners of the book boards and cover them with my specially prepared tissue, which, once dried, all looks okay. I will have to tweak the colour a bit and darken it and am practicing on some dummy boards at the moment, so hopefully they will not be so visible in the end.

November 23, 2011November 5, 2022

Making Toned Tissue for Paper Repairs

Tissue toning is something I have only done briefly before this lecture, and not one I had had any instruction in. Having previously had a thorough introduction into pulp repairs with Alan Buchanan, this particular process of toning tissue seemed to make a lot more sense than perhaps it had done previously.

It was necessary to learn to and tone tissue in order to move ahead with our board attachment lectures. The use of japanese tissue is now essential in the repair of books and paper, and has more strength than one might imagine, indeed a hinge repair in japanese tissue is often enough to hold a board onto a book for the foreseeable future, though to look at it, it almost seems impossible.

The technique for this tissue toning, was to create a colour pallet similar to the colours of the book cover in question. This was done using different acrylic colours, such as burnt umber and ocre, these can be mixed on a sheet of melinex as an artists pallet is. Once the desired colour is reached, the pigment is then dabbed onto the tissue using a damp piece of cotton wool. This means that it is possible to get a meddly of colours on the tissue.

Personally I was not so enamoured with this particular method. I found both the cotton wool and the tissue would soak up the pigment too quickly to get good coverage, and the tissue ended up looking too patchy and the fibres of the tissue would become damaged and fragile.

An alternative method, which I personally prefer, is to make up a pallet of liquid colour in a relatively large quantity. Then the tissue is dipped into the liquid pigment. This way the colour is more consistent and will cover a larger area. It also does not put any strain on the tissue fibres, meaning they retain their strength. Once one tissue is toned, it is possible to add water to the pallet and get a lower percentage of pigment on another sheet, and so on until the pigment is gone and the tissue toning is quite pale.

The negative is that it is important to get the right colour before you go ahead and tone the sheet, whereas in the former method, more colour can be added to get the toning correct. In both methods, colour can be added to the tissue once it has been added to the book to blend in the tissue. This is often done with black.

An alternative method, which I have yet to test, is using a spray gun to cover the tissue in the pigment. This should get a maximum coverage of pigment onto the tissue with a minimum effect or damage to the tissue.