Owen's Chivalric Quest Book: Part IV

Covering the boards with the white leather went pretty well.  The wheat paste didn't attach well to the ends of the perg paper, so I'll need to look into other glues and see what will work better.  But, even for that, the book seems nice and sturdy.

Pasting the outside down.

Pasting the turn-ins.

Getting ready to paste down the end papers.

Finished book.

Owen's Chivalric Quest Book: Part III

The book board were another challenge.  My first attempt I only dug channels in the inside for the supports to go; this time I drilled and chiseled out channels going through the boards to lace the supports through the boards.

Channels cut through the book boards.

Supports laced to the book boards and attached.

 It was touch to get the draw knife started when trimming the pages.  I see why the draw knife was eventually dropped for a book binders plow. 

Pages trimmed to the boards.

End bands sewn in

Owen's Chivalric Quest Book: Part II

The binding process made me nerviness.  We had spent so many hours working on all of those sheets and now I had to punch holes in them and cut them to shape eventually.  While I did the binding, Nic work on the brass clasps.

Punching holes in the gatherings was the point I was at my most nerviness. After that, it was a lot easier to do what I had to, to turn the gatherings into a book.

Punching holes in the gatherings.

Sewing frame all set up.

Sewing the first gathering on.

 I did manage to stab the tips of a few fingers while doing the sewing, drawing only a little blood each time, so bleeding on this project was kept to a real minimum.

All finished.

Owen's Chivalric Quest Book: Part I

Owen's Chivalric Quest Book has been completed and presented, so I'll be getting into it's creation and process.

You can find a documentation write up, here.

Once all the calligraphy was finished, we started drawing the illumination part of the project.  We did a page with miniatures at the start of each section, and every page of calligraphy received at least a boarder.  In total there are 170 pages that were drawn on and painted.

Adding Drawings.

 We mixed our own paints, besides for the gold.  It would have saved some time and fussiness if we had gone with store bought paint for all of our colors.  We went through two to three batches of paint for the major colors.

Nic mixing pigments to paint.

We painted the base colors on each page.  If I had the space I would paint one side of every sheet in a gathering at a time.  By the end of the project, we had figured out how to assembly line the illumination.

base painted areas

Drawing the black lines around the painted areas made it look really dark.  We ended up having to remind ourselves many times that the white work would make it look better.

outlined in black

 Adding the white work brought everything together.  This the the stage we started getting excited about how things were turning out.

Finished sheet.

Bookbinding - Attempt One: Turn Ins

After what seemed like a long time, I pulled the book out from between the board and readied to paste down the leather that turns around edge of the book to the inside.  Figuring out the cuts to a little bit as all the examples I found was for modern book board, not oak boards.  Eventually, I had things trimmed and ready for the pasting. I did wrap the paper pages in wax paper so they wouldn't get glued together.

Almost ready for pasting.  Just need to add a protective cover to the paper pages.

Paste down completed, a quick picture before the book gets clamped again.

All clamped up, time to let dry again.

Bookbinding - Attempt One: End bands & Leather Cover

The end bands went really quickly. I expected to start them at home and finish up during a local meeting. Well I finished them before I needed to even start rounding up the family to leave for the meeting.

I didn't get many pictures of covering the outside with leather as I could have used a third hand in doing this part.  I'm sure like with everything a little practice goes a long way.

A finished end band.  The extra will be cut off later.

Leather pasted to the outside of the book.

Slightly different view of the drying pressed book.

Bookbinding - Attempt One: Trimming and Spine

None of the local big box home improvement stores carry a draw knife, so when it came to trimming the paper to the boards, I ended up using a craft knife and then filing it to flush with the boards.

Afterwards I used some wheat paste and bookbinding super cloth to reenforce the spine of the book.  I pasted the cloth over the outside of the boards as per one of the examples in J.A. Szirmai's book, The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding.

The end bands will be done after the spine has dried.

Pages trimmed to the book.

Pasting down the cloth to reenforce the spine.

Bookbinding - Attempt One: Attaching the boards

When it came time to attach the supports to the boards, I used small upholstery nails found at a local sewing shop.

Nailing the supports to the boards.

All done with one side.

Boards attached, time to trim.

Bookbinding - Attempt One: The Boards

I prepared the oak boards using almost all hand tools.  I did use a powered drill to drill the holes for the end bands. So far so good.

Using a rasp and files to shape the edges of the boards.

Areas for the supports ready for chisel work.

Areas chiseled out ready for the supports.

Bookbinding - Attempt One (Cont)

I don't think I started off my stitching tight enough, the first gathering is a bit loose, compared to the others, but the stitching went really quickly once everything was set up.  Next I'll need to cut the boards and do some work with the chisels to make the channels.

All the gatherings stitched to the leather supports.

Another view, before taking the book off the frame.

Ready for the next step.

Bookbinding - Attempt One

I was able to give my new sewing frame a test run. Materials include, paper from a sketch book, linen thread, leather strips, split (Might be to short, guess I'll find out).  Over all the frame was a bit of an issue to get all set up by myself this first attempt.  I might have to make a pair of shorter uprights for the frame at some point.  So far it's been fun putting to use things I have only read about to this point.

Folding the paper.

Punching holes for thread

Setting up the sewing frame.

Starting the stitching.

Collapsible Sewing Frame for Bookbinding

This past Saturday, I was able to spend some time on a project I've been thinking about making for awhile now, a collapsible sewing frame for bookbinding. 

It's made out of red oak, using modern power tools, and finished using danish oil.

All taken apart.

Assembled.

Assembled, another view.

Limp Binding

I tried my hand at some book binding after getting in an order of supplies.  I decided to start with limp binding before moving on to using wooden boards.  My first attempt turned out pretty well.

I used 50lb sketch book paper with the original size of 11 x 14.  I cut each sheet in half.

I gathered the sheets into stacks of six and then folded them in half.

I used a bone folder to crease the pages while holding down the sheets using a ruler.

I used a bit of scrap leather to made buttons and spine for the book.

 I placed marks on an index card to make the punching of holes quick and easy.

Each gathering was then stitched to the cover and spine.  The cover is from clothing weight leather that I had laying around.

I added ties that I made on a lucet and some extra stitches along the long stitches to help hold them in place.

Sharp Change of Direction

I'm making some profound changes to my book project idea.

While doing some more searching for digital facsimiles on the web, I ran across one of the many Anglo-Saxon chronicles. It's known by several names, the Parker Chronicle, the Winchester Chronicle, or Manuscript 173, and I found it here at Parker Library on the Web.
Image of f 11 R:

I've decided to attempt a few quires, or loose booklets, based on this manuscript for a "History" theme arts and science comp that's coming up in December. I'm only planning on quires right now as I'm still working on learning the book binding arts, and making the quires is one of the first steps in making the book.  I also don't know if I have the time to do all the calligraphy.  I think I've nearly pulled together all the information I want to include right now, so it's time to work on my calligraphy and layout.

Isaac

Yet another Project

Another new project.  Yea, just what I needed, another project. hehe

I've been mainly working on this one during lunch breaks at work well at least the drawing of the pages.  I've decided to do a small book.  Yea, a book.  I've been doing some research into book binding, nothing to deep yet, but it's been turning the gears in the head.  So, I've decided to tackle something smaller, it's going to be about a 5 x 7 in page size.  It will be in the style of Taymoth Hours or the Yates Thompson 13, a book of hours from the 2nd quarter of the 14th century.  It can be found here. I've gotten 34 pages sketched out and I've started to lay out the calligraphy. 

I'm still working on charter designs.  I've got the cleaned up and inked.  I need to make a run to the copy shop and then do some more cut and paste.

I've also got the inkle loom out and been doing some weaving.  Making some bands to go on the T-tunics that Ginger's made.

Isaac