The newest commission piece I said YES to is, hands down, the biggest book I have attempted to rebind from a soft cover into a hard cover. It is just under 12 inches tall by 8 1/2 inches wide, and 1 5/8 thick. This Bible was brand new and in good condition, so I was a little hesitant to start peeling the soft cover off! Since it is significantly larger than any books I have done in the past I wasn’t too sure on the timeline for completion. I guess I’ll find out 😉
Inside of the cover
The inside of the cover with no endpapers.
Ethiopian Bible front cover
A new book with a nice clean soft cover…a little hesitant to peel it off!
I became so engrossed in this project that I need to apologize… I forgot to take photos of the actual process! Apart from the actual starting-point.
What am I missing?
Since I haven’t made a hardcover book nearly as big as this one, I had limited materials on hand, such as large enough chipboard and end paper material. I had 12×12″ chipboard, but since the book block was about 11 7/8″ it wouldn’t leave enough overhang for the hard cover. I was unable to locally source any chipboard or grey boar big enough so I shopped online and managed to find some 11×17″ 50pt chipboard.
With no decorative paper large enough for this project, nor suitable patterned or marbled paper, you’ll just have to stay tuned for a future post to see how I utilized undersized paper for the end papers!!
Where to start?
I got to work while I waited for the chipboard to arrive. Carefully removing the soft cover I then took some measurements of the book block. I added 3mm to the chipboard case on the head and tail and 4mm to the fore edge.
I decided on 2-3oz vegetable tanned calfskin leather about 1.2mm thick. Taking the combined measurements from the book block, I added 25mm for the turn-ins + 1cm to the total length for any margin of error, as I hadn’t measured and fit the chipboard case to the book yet and wanted to stay on the safe side.
Paring the edges of the leather went without a hitch. I tipped on two sheets on either end signatures, with about 5mm of glued surface to make sure it held nicely.
The case (ie, hard cover)
Once the chipboard arrived I jumped right back into this project. Taking the measurements I previously settled on and needing the 50pt chipboard to be thicker, I cut out 2 front and 2 back panels, adding 5mm to all edges so I could trim them later once installed. Gluing the 2 sheets together with wheat paste and adding a sheet of 167 g cardstock to both sides gave it the desired thickness. I made sure to line the cardstock up with the inner (spine) edge and roughly centered between the head and tail.
Spine
I thought the spine was going to be tricky. As you can see in the photo it has a straight spine.
I was asked to add raised bands so I figured I should round the spine if I could so as to not look “off”. And actually it went pretty smoothly! A pleasant surprise.
Taking 3 strips of chipboard, gluing them one on top of the other with wheat past, and rounding the top to give it the desired curve, I then glued 1.2mm leather strips on for the raised bands. I thinned out the ends on the flat side to allow room for the leather turn-ins.
With the flat side against the book block and an Oxford Hollow glued with PVA and sandwiched in between, this gave the spine a gentle curve and still let the book block “throw up” as it did previously.
The new hard case with raised bands
The new spine, curved on the outside and inside at either end about 25mm down from the ends
Adding the leather cover
Applying the leather to the case turned out to be the tricky part of this project. Making sure to keep the leather moist with water applied on hair side of the leather with a wet cloth, I brushed an even layer of wheat paste to the flesh side of the leather and let it soak in for a couple minutes before adding a second coat. Lining up the book on the leather I then went through the the process of folding it over the edges, trimming the corners and tucking it under the book block. These steps were pretty tedious.
Next phase
That is as far as the project got this week so I will leave it there! The next phase will entail carving the front cover and figuring out what to do about end papers… please stay tuned!
Again I apologize for the lack of pictures taken. My bad. But such is life!!!
In the meantime take care and remember, “real passion wakes you up!”
