Family Bible Restoration

It's been over a year since my last post, but I haven't forgotten about my blog; I've just been too busy to pay attention to anything other than what's on my work bench. (I'm horrible at multi-tasking ..)

The reason I decided to write this time is to remind folks, who are planing to get their Family Bible restored, of the importance of choosing the competent/experienced real restorer. There seem to be too many people who call themselves "bookbinders", with only a brief knowledge of binding books that they obtained from watching Youtube videos, attempting to "restore" books for profit, or binders whose binderies have been in business for decades, actually don't know what they are doing. Quite a few of such previously "restored" (or should I say professionally damaged..) books have come to us for re-restoration. 

Every book comes to us is priceless and irreplaceable, but when it comes to restoring Family Bibles, I always find myself feeling especially honored to be a part of their families' history of the past and future; I know Family Bibles are one thing that will be actually loved and cherished by many, for years to come. That is why restoration of  Family Bibles has to be done right, the first time.

A few months ago, this Bible came to me. According to the client, it was restored not too long ago, but as it was exposed to humidity, it became a bit moldy. She wanted us to do something about it.

Well, as you see on the before pictures, the problem is NOT really the mold. It certainly needs more than replacing the moldy endpapers and gluing back the spine. EVERYTHING the previous "binder" did was wrong, or should I say criminal. I was absolutely horrified when I saw the Bible. As an unspoken rule of being in a field of age-old craft like bookbinding, we don't really want to criticize fellow craftsmans' jobs; we just look away, keep our mouths shut, and  mind our own business. Though I have warned people of incompetent binders' existence before, I normally don't actually show an example of bad restoration and say "This is bad". But I couldn't help it this time.

I don't think I need to point out what's wrong with the Bible because pictures show it. Again, all I can say is EVERYTHING this "binder" did was outrageously wrong. There's no indication of his/her having any knowledge what so ever of how to bind a book, let alone restore one. One thing you might not be able to see on the pictures is that the leather this binder used is not pared. Leather paring is the most basic skill any binders must have, by the way.

Anyway, when you are thinking of restoring your Family Bible (or whatever books), do check the binder's works on the website first. And if you like what you see,  preferably visit him/her to actually see/touch the works in person, because digital pictures can be deceiving nowadays.

This is Holy Bible, Dr. William Smith's Standard Bible Dictionary, published by Henry L. Warren & Co., 1881-1884

Boucher on Forest Trees, 1775

It's a bit late, but a happy new year to ye' all ! I hope you are still sticking with the resolution that you made a month ago! (I gave up mine on the 3rd day. Ohh, typical me.)

I haven't updated my blog for a while, but that doesn't mean I wasn't working, yo! I just got too preoccupied with work physically and mentally, so I neglected to do anything else other than what was in front of me. And what was in front of me last week was my seedy digital camera that was buried in my so called junk box. You know, one of those boxes or drawers in which you dump little stuff that you never use but can't somehow throw away, thinking that you might need them someday. Unmatched batteries, little toys that came with breakfast cereals, almost empty eye shadows and a What-the-F**k-was-I-thinking-when-I-bought-it!?! goth-black lipstick... For some reasons, I put my digital camera in there. humm,,, That's not good. I don't know how it got there, because once something goes to my junk box, it usually never sees daylight again. Kinda like a little black hole in my room.

Anyway, that reminded me of how badly I've been neglecting my blog. I hastily took a picture of a book that I was about to work on, with a bit of guilt. There were actually two books on my workbench at that time, - one is a first edition of Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries by James Fergusson, and the other is Boucher on Forest Trees, which I chose to post on my blog because of its leather marbling. I thought you guys might find an interest in some "forgotten art" aspect of this craft. This is a common traditional method of leather dyeing technique using acid - a mixture of potassium sulfate and ferrous sulfate which is applied onto running water on the surface of leather. This particular texture is called "tree marbling" because of its resemblance to tree branches. It's very common in antiquarian books, but I personally don't know many binders who do this marbling technique nowadays. I, for one, can't do it, so don't ask me how to do it properly! Well.. This is how old arts and crafts die, you know? There's no one who can teach us to inherit the knowledge to the next generation.

This work required a rebacking of the spine, which needed to match the marbling texture of the original front and back boards. Matching the acid-based leather marbling is always tricky, and this one was no exception. I hope the client approves the result.. Oh, and, in case you are wondering about the spelling of forest on the skiver label, I did a double R because the original was spelled like that. I don't know if it's an original binder's mistake, but hey, I must follow the client's instruction.

This is A Treatise on Forest Trees by William Boucher. (1775) By the way, there were whole bunch of plants and flowers pressed in the book. Someone was indeed studying the book seriously. ;-)

A Christmas Carol,1844

People dressing up as bigfoot and cat woman have disappeared from the street, and a long, hard fought battle of the U.S. presidential election has finally come to an end. Whether or not the result was in your favor, now it's time to shift your focus into a positivity. What's done is done, and anger and frustration only create more anger, eh? Suppose, you drop $100 bill, and keep whining and frustrated about it for a long time. What does it create? You are making yourself miserable by thinking about it on top of the fact that you lost $100. It's a double whammy, yo! So, now, get serious about how big of a turkey you should roast for Thanksgiving (haha...) and what to get for Christmas for your loved ones. I always say this around this time of the year, but please don't bring Christmas rush jobs at the last minute! We might close Christmas orders as early as two weeks prior to Christmas depending on how backed-up we are. So gather up your ideas and get here quickly!

This is one of our very organized client's Christmas restoration jobs that was sent in a few weeks ago. This is a fourth edition of A Christmas Carol, 1844. Although it's a fourth edition, it's still a pricey book. So needless to say, all original material had to be preserved and the restoration must be done as invisible as possible. Restoring old cloth binding can be tricky as matching a new material to the original  takes some skills. Master thinks I'm better at it, so it came to my workbench.

Well, if you know anyone who resembles $$ Old Scrooge $$, remind him of this classic again. It's never too late!

Like Tiny Tim says, "God Bless Us, Every One!" ~ Hope for peace from M.H.R.

The Ladies of the Altar Society of Honolulu, 1888

Traditional photo albums are simply destined to get broken in a messy way because of its construction and often unconventional covers and materials. So, restoring them can be a bit troublesome, and I have to admit that they often end up getting onto our work benches last. Sorry! If you are a client who left a photo album with us and reading this, forgive us! But you gotta have to have a certain mind set to work on (messy) photo albums because it just can be tedious! It normally involves reconstructing / guarding the hinge of each page/panel and it's mentally exhausting, really.. Job itself is not complicated, but is a rather mundane task that sort of eats at you gradually. Ugh..

Here's one of those poor photo albums which neither of us, me or master, wanted to touch for a long, long time.... But like I said, we have to be in a certain mind state to tackle messy photo albums. Thank GOD it didn't have a radically raised "dome" cover boards with embroidery or naughty stuffing, or wooden skeletons underneath that stuck to the cover material like Siamese twins! This just involved reconstruction of the hinges and simple re-hinging, Whew! One problem, which resulted in our avoidance from it, other than a boring task of hinge reconstruction, was the warped boards. The pictures aren't really capturing it, but it was bad. I couldn't heat-press them because of the photographs, so all I could do was to straighten them by cold-pressing as much as I could. It looks a lot better, (mind you), and has indeed eased the degree of warping. But still, it's a bit wobbly. Well, it's gonna have to live with that and it's the fate of this photo album. Can't fight the fate sometimes!

This is a collection of photographs of Hawaii, presented to members of The Ladies of the Altar Society of Honolulu in 1888.

Narrative of a Tour Through Hawaii, 1826

My trip to Asia is coming up in a week, but I don't think I've told you I'll be in Hawaii for a couple of weeks in June. (I, too, need a vacation once in awhile..) While I'm not so enthused about this upcoming multiple-week-long Asia trip to be honest with you, I'm very much looking forward to spending time under the bright sun shines on the white beaches with a dozen cans of macadamia nuts and a *complimentary* six-pack, staying at a backpacker's lodge while hiking up to the Kīlauea (which I hope would shoot up some lavas just for my amusement. Pray for me for that to happen!), and scuba diving for the first time! (I'm gonna have to get new swimsuits cuz I don't think anyone wanna see 30-some-year-old in bikinis,, Aging sucks. haha..) And I can't wait to see my friend whom I haven't seen for years! (Her lovely hubbie's in the military, so they relocate too often,,) Ah, Two more months, M.! Two more months until the Aloha State! I'm gonna be getting rid of my super pale skin there a bit. hohoho.

Well, back to the world of antiquity,, Some two centuries before my (supposed) arrival on the islands, there were British and American missionaries keeping themselves busy with "saving souls" of the Hawaiian natives, ,,, , and one of them was William Ellis. He's published multiple journals chronicling his experiences and records of the lives and customs of the natives. This is one of his first journals; Narrative of a Tour Through Hawaii: Or Owhyhee; with Observations on the Nature of the Sandwich Islands, and Remarks on the Manners, Customs, Traditions, History, and Language of the Inhabitants, published by H. Fisher, Son, and P. Jackson. (London, 1826.) If you look close, the gold ornaments on the spine are pineapples. Haha, that's cute and,, made me hungry just now. (humm pineapples!) Anyway, the restoration was relatively uncomplicated and straightforward; re-hinging and internal hinge mending as well as minor corner repairs. But I thought I might as well share some of the plates in this book that show how thing were back then, back when there were no mega hotel resorts and what not...
(These are digital camera photo shots, and aren't scanned by a scanner. So, pardon me for the strange yellowness of the images..)

Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook

Along with Bibles, cookbooks are one of the most restored books in our bindery. That's actually understandable really, as they are, like Bibles, the most personal, sweetest, aesthetically sound, virtually perfect heritage that moms can leave with their families for the generations to come. Whenever I hear someone say "this is my grandma's recipe!" or "this recipe's been in my family for generations!",  I see their genuine smiles with a humble pride and a hint of nostalgia, which melts my heart! Yet, then I would get hit with a bit of envy and a sudden sadness of the fact that I'll never be able to taste my grandma's cuisines any more; my family doesn't have a tradition of keeping anything written...... (Duh! Grandma! You had a stack of pens n' pencils n' tiny notebooks in THAT impeccably crafted, spectacularly beautiful stationary holder you made and kept next to you all the time since I was a toddler!? Why the heck didn't you use it and write sh*t down for me before you went!? .. utterly puzzling and unequivocally frustrating ...)

Anyhow, if you are an American, you probably have seen this cookbook in the kitchen, or a different edition of this one of the most popular and adored cookbooks of all time. (along with Joy of Cooking, Betty Crocker's, American Woman's, etc.) This is a 1938 edition of My New Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. This is an earlier edition of this series, so the cover design is different; you might be more familiar with the latter edition design of a red and white checker cover. Like many American cookbooks, this is in a ring-holder binder, which is seemingly clever as a cookbook because you can add and subtract whatever you want. But on the other hand, once the cover is broken (inevitably on the hinges), it's sort of tricky to restore due to the ring fixture on the spine which is permanently fixated with a couple of screws through the cover material inside and out. So, the restoration needs to be done without breaking the fixtures apart. Also, the holes on each page get easily torn over time, so putting hole reinforcement (acid-free) stickers is recommended; but you need to be careful because pages would expand on the spine due to the thickness of the stickers. One thing moms in general love to do is to leave pieces of hand-written recipe notes and recipe clippings of magazines inside cookbooks. Making a secondary miscellaneous pocket or folder for them is always a good idea, in order to prevent those loose papers from going missing over time. For this particular cookbook, I used an ordinary clear plastic folder cut to size and added the custom made folder in the ring binder; the client's secret family recipes will be kept forever!

Now We Are Six, 1927

The chosen, first book of the year 2014 to be featured on my blog is..... Winnie the Pooh! tataa~!

This is the last of the series of A. A. Milne's Pooh Bear poem book, first American edition of Now We Are Six, illustrated by E. H. Shepard, published by E. P. Dutton & Co. (New York, 1927) It's kinda sad that it's missing the dust jacket, but the client isn't concerned about its market value or what not. It's a sentimental, priceless piece of her childhood that needs to be in her family for generations. The restoration involved was new spine re-hinging without gold lettering, internal cloth hinges, complete resewing, minor corner repairs and some paper mending.

I've put up some pictures of the illustrations here for you guys, because who doesn't like Pooh Bear?! The cutest and the most delightful little thing on the planet next to Honey Boo Boo! (arrr, Am being sarcastic. My bad, my bad.) But, I tell you what.. When I was checking out those adorable illustrations with a face full of spontaneous smiles, master mumbled something with giggles. He whispered, "Now we are sixty.." *giggle giggle grin*... Yes, you ARE indeed sixty, alright. Duh. But now, I can't stop imagining Pooh Bear with a bending back, walking awkwardly with a swinging cane, cursing at random things like an old geezer, Yo! Thanks a lot, master for feeding me the awful images!!

But if you really think about it, Pooh, after all, is 88 years old as of 2014 actually... oh boy.. Truth hurts sometimes. (haha..) Anyway.. Happy New Year, guys!