Sunday, December 4, 2011

Holy Bible complete

Here's the finished work of the Bible. I took sightly better pictures of the fore-edge paintings, (book opened in the middle this time) so I added them to this post. The bindery is located in the lower level of the building, (... A.K.A. basement!! duh!) so we thoroughly rely on the yellow incandescent lights. Thus, the lighting for taking photos isn't so ideal. Anyway, I uploaded pictures of the broken endsheet's hinge and the top part of the spine last time, so I uploaded the after pictures of them here. When you need to preserve the original endpaper which hinge is broken, you "connect" it with either cloth, leather, or paper. Sometimes, you don't want the restoration to show, but don't worry about showing it off.  Make it as a part of the design. In fact, as you probably know, some styles of bindings intentionally have hinges with a different material as a part of the design (and for integrity). I personally love the look of it. It gives a tasteful definition. And by making it look as if it is a part of the design will avoid the restoration to be looking "patched" and "visibly fixed", or I'd call it a "Frankenstein" restoration?! (uahh, don't do that if you wanna fix a book, yeah?) The client of this Bible wanted to preserve everything, so I needed to do the internal re-hinging to preserve the original endpaper. I used a black leather which I treated to match the texture of the original leather. At the end, I dyed and treated worn surfaces, ironed the original ribbon, and opened a beer. Cheers!     //    For before pictures of this bible, go to my former post: Holy Bible w/ Fore-edge painting

4 comments:

  1. Wow! What incredible edge paintings! I would love to see more closeups of those both. Do you have more? --Grandpop Bubbles (www.facebook.com/GrandpopBubbles/photos)

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    1. Hi Brian,
      I don't normally take pictures of whatever the book comes to my workbench. I took this photo just for my blog. I'll make sure to take pictures next time books with fore-edge paintings show up in the bindery, and post them on my blog. ;-) They really are remarkable to look at.

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  3. What is your email? Or please send me your contact information at my email, grandpopbubbles@gmail.com (I help kids make the BIGGEST bubbles of their lives at free bubble festivals of mine, www.facebook.com/GrandpopBubbles/photos and I do bookbinding).

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