Hand bind-ing a book, using pri-mar-i-ly 15-cen-tu-ry meth-ods and mate-ri-als sounds like a major under-tak-ing, rife with pit-falls and frus-tra-tion.
A far more relax-ing activ-i-ty is watch-ing Four Keys Book Arts’ word-less, 24-minute high-lights reel of self-taught book-binder Den-nis tack-ling that same assign-ment, above. (Bonus — it’s a guar-an-teed treat for those prone to autonomous sen-so-ry merid-i-an response tin-gles.)
Den-nis, whose oth-er recent for-ays into bespoke book-bind-ing include a num-ber of ele-gant match-box sized vol-umes and upcy-cling three Dun-geons & Drag-ons rule-books into a tome bound in veg-etable tanned goatskin, labored on the late-medieval Goth-ic repro-duc-tion for over 60 hours.
For research on this type of bind-ing, he turned to book design-er J.A. Szir-mai’s The Archae-ol-o-gy of Medieval Book-bind-ing, and while the goal was nev-er 100% peri-od accu-ra-cy, Den-nis notes that the craft of tra-di-tion-al hand-bind-ing has remained vir-tu-al-ly unchanged for cen-turies:
The medieval binder would have found many of the tools and tech-niques to be very famil-iar. The sin-gle biggest anachro-nism is my use of syn-thet-ic PVA glue rather than peri-od-appro-pri-ate ani-mal glue. The sec-ond his-toric anom-aly is my use of mar-bled paper, though it could be argued that the ear-li-est Euro-pean mar-bled papers of the mid-17th cen-tu-ry do over-lap with this bind-ing style. The non-pareil pat-tern I have cho-sen for the end-pa-pers, though, dates from the 1820’s, and so is dis-tinct-ly out of place. But apart from those, vir-tu-al-ly all of the oth-er mate-ri-als in this book would have been avail-able to the medieval book-binder.
Those crav-ing a more step-by-step expla-na-tion should set time aside to view the longer videos, below, in which Den-nis shares such time-con-sum-ing, detail-ori-ent-ed tasks as trim-ming and tidy-ing the edges with a cab-i-net scraper and book-binder’s plough, sewing end-bands to sup-port and pro-tect the book’s head and the spine, and dec-o-rat-ing the leather cov-er with a hand-tooled flo-ral pat-tern embell-ished with gold foil high-lights.
Rather than cut cor-ners, he lit-er-al-ly cuts cor-ners — the met-al clasp and cor-ner guards - from a .8mm thick sheet of brass.
Only the final video is nar-rat-ed, so be sure to acti-vate closed cap-tion-ing / sub-ti-tles in the YouTube tool-bar to read his com-men-tary.
Mate-ri-als and tools used in this project:
Text Paper: Fab-ri-ano Accad-e-mia 120 gsm draw-ing paper, 65 x 50 cm, long grain
End-pa-pers: Four Keys Book Arts hand-made mar-bled paper, Fab-ri-ano Accad-e-mia 120 gsm draw-ing paper, red hand-made paper
Thread: Undyed Linen 25/3, unknown brand
Cords: Leather, unknown type, rough-ly 3 oz/ 1 mm
Wax: Nat-ur-al Beeswax
Glue: Mix of Acid-Free PVA and Methyl Cel-lu-lose, 3:2 ratio.
Paper Knife (made from an old kitchen knife)
Bone Fold-er (hand-made in-house)
Scrap book board, var-i-ous sizes/thickness
Press-ing Boards (1/2″ maple ply-wood, made in house)
Cast-Iron Book Press (Patrick Ritchie, Edin-burgh, cir-ca 1850)
Stain-less Steel rulers, var-i-ous sizes
Small Stan-ley Knife
Maple Lay-ing Press (hand-made in-house)
Small Car-pen-ter’s Square, unknown brand
Pen-cil (Black-wing)
Steel dividers, unknown brand
Lith-o-g-ra-phy Stone (cir-ca 1925)
Cot-ton Rag
Agate Bur-nish-er
Pierc-ing Cra-dle (hand-made in-house)
Awl
2″ nat-ur-al bris-tle brush, gener-ic
parch-ment release paper
blot-ting paper
Acetate bar-ri-er sheets, .01 gauge
Dahle Van-tage 12e Guil-lo-tine (found at a thrift store)
Scis-sors
Book-bind-ing Nee-dles
Sewing Frame (hand-made in-house)
Brass H?Keys (hand-made in-house)
Linen sewing tapes, 12 mm
Pins
Watch a full playlist of Four Keys Book Arts’ Medieval Goth-ic Bind-ing videos here. See more of Den-nis book bind-ing projects on Four Keys Book Arts’ Insta-gram.
Relat-ed Con-tent
Won-der-ful-ly Weird & Inge-nious Medieval Books
When Medieval Man-u-scripts Were Recy-cled & Used to Make the First Print-ed Books
The Medieval Mas-ter-piece, the Book of Kells, Has Been Dig-i-tized and Put Online
– Ayun Hal-l-i-day is the Chief Pri-ma-tol-o-gist of the East Vil-lage Inky zine and author, most recent-ly, of Cre-ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota-to Man-i-festo and Cre-ative, Not Famous Activ-i-ty Book. Fol-low her @AyunHalliday.
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