Caution: I have had one of the craziest weeks of my life – so I apologize if this post is disjointed or rambling.

The next binding that I am going to share is actually the first binding project that was assigned in the second year. Students at NBSS are not given a binding to do for the first couple of months of their second year, so that there is no distraction from practicing gold tooling. It’s probably a wise choice – as I was looking for anything else to work on after the first couple of days of tooling.

The millimeter binding is a very modern and elegant adaptation of the paper case binding, well suited to thin volumes. It is also a logical next step in the curriculum because it is so similar to the leather bindings done in the first year (here). I’m going to discuss two variations: the millimeter binding and the Rubow binding.

According to John Hyltoft, former Head of Conservation for the Smithsonian Institute Libraries, the millimeter binding style was developed by the Danish binder Henrik Park during WWII. At a time when luxury items like leather were at a premium, there was a place for finely bound volumes that used leather as sparingly as possible. These bindings are characterized by leather (or parchment or even cloth) that covers the spine and extends about a millimeter onto the boards. Small “hidden” or “semi-hidden” corners are also quite popular.

Park’s book from 1949, titled Moderne Danske Bindtyper, is a short volume with nice photographs of several millimeter binding styles, including detailed photos of a variety of corner and headcap styles.

Other variations on the millimeter include one by August Sandgren, in which small strips of leather appear at only the head and tail of the spine and extend a millimeter onto the boards (Park, Bindtype I). Two variations that are not pictured in Park, that are probably more modern adaptations include a kind of T shape in leather at the head of the spine, with small arms going onto the boards, and doing a full strip of leather along the fore-edges of the boards instead of corners. The “Bind-O-Rama” from  2005 (found here) has images of a range of  bindings that encompass the variations on the style. Don Rash’s book is definitely my favorite of them.

The “Rubow” binding, supposedly suggested by Jorn Rubow (maybe this Jorn Rubow?) features leather all along the head and tail edges of the boards. Park’s description of this binding, “papirbind med slidskinner”, fittingly translates to paper binding with wear rails.

Some common features of the books include a single-folio endsheet reinforced with a Japanese paper or textile hinge, sewing on flattened cords, 90 degree shoulders with open joints, rolled leather or cloth endbands, and edge decoration (Riley, 2006; Verheyen, 2005). In reality, these are an economical form of fine binding.

The literature presents two methods for doing this binding: either as an “on-set boards” binding in which the boards are attached to a waste sheet built into the endpapers before covering (Riley’s method), or as a simple case structure that is covered before attaching it to the bookblock (Verheyen’s method).

The endsheet construction will depend upon the method of assembly. For the on-set boards version, the endsheet is composed of a single folio of decorative paper with a 2cm strip of mull tipped to the outer edge. A folio of  plain paper is then wrapped around, forming a plain flyleaf and wastesheet. This whole assembly is then folded 5mm away from the edge to make a hook, which is wrapped around the first or last section of the text (Riley, 2006, p. 10).

The endsheet for the case version is either a single folio of decorative paper tipped to the first or last section of the text or a double folio that is sewn on (Verheyen, 2005, p. 25). Regardless of the number of folios, Verheyen advocates adding a guard of Japanese paper or thin cloth around the first section and endsheet.

The forwarding of the book is basically a more refined version of what I have described in the past concerning case bindings or on-set boards bindings. I will note, however that according to Riley, it is only the head edges of these books that are typically trimmed and decorated (p. 12). Solid color, sprinkling, graphite or gilding are options for edge treatment. I did a solid graphite edge for one and a graphite and gauffered edge for another.

If endbands are present in millimeter bindings, they are almost always rolled leather endbands. The spine lining is done much the same way that I have described before – patch lining and sanding to get a very smooth, but rigid, spine.

The leather covering is done first, and, for this style of binding to look right, the edges of the leather cannot be visible under the paper covering. Once the leather is covered over, any sudden changes in transition from leather to board surface will be very apparent and look sloppy.

There are two methods for dealing with the thickness of the leather. The first is to flat pare the leather, cover, then in-fill the remaining space on the boards before covering with decorative paper (Verheyen, p. 28). The second method is to edge pare the leather, cover, then further pare and sand the leather to achieve a long, gradual bevel onto the board surface (Riley, p. 15).

Regardless of how you deal with the leather, it is pared quite thin (0.5mm). Covering is done in the usual way with paste. I found the Rubow covering to be quite challenging, however, because so little leather is holding it onto the boards while you are doing the turn-ins and headcaps.

If following Riley’s method of beveling the leather, the  millimeter of skin that will be exposed is marked out with dividers and the edges further pared at a shallow angle with the knife. The edge is also sanded to get a very smooth surface. The leather patches at the corners are done at this point and sanded smooth in the same way.

To finish, the boards are covered in decorative paper and the endsheets pasted down. Paste papers are quite common in the examples that I’ve seen.

This binding style is actually quite fun to do and the results look very refined. I highly recommend Riley and Verheyen’s articles for step by step instructions. John Hyltoft also demonstrated this binding at the GBW Standards conference in 1995. You can purchase a video of that demonstration here.

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Application deadlines are starting to loom and I have to sort out what I’m doing after I graduate in June – but I will try to keep posting the vast array of projects that I have to share on a regular basis. Here is a short list of what is in the queue: Carolingian binding, atlas and album structures, book action/sewing support models, limp leather, and springbacks.

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Park, H. (1950). Modern Danish Bookbindings. Copenhagen, Anker Kysters.

Riley, D. (2006). The Millimetre Binding: Danish economic structure. Bookbinder, 20, 9-17.

Verheyen, P. D. (2005). “Millimeter Binding / Edelpappband” The Bonefolder: an e-journal for the bookbinder and book artist, 1(2), 25-29.

The next paper binding that I’m going to share is by far the simplest structure that we’ve done. Rhodes (1995) describes these stiffened paper bindings as “beefed-up wrappers with thin board or thick paper supports” (p. 58). While they appear very similar to the typical modern, adhesive-bound trade paperback, these books are much more durable. Cloonan (1991) states that this structure was typically used to bind up issues of periodicals (p. 8), and in fact the example in the school’s collection is a gathering of German pharmaceutical journals from 1804.

Textblocks of this variety are often sewn unto supports, such as cord or vellum slips  (Frost, 1982, p. 64) – the latter variety contributing greatly to the overall strength of the structure. I made my models based on the example in our collection – sewing the textblock on two thick vellum slips in the same somewhat erratic abbreviated pattern.

While the thread used in these bindings is rather course, the softness of the paper absorbs a lot of the swell and allows the textblock to remain square.

The endsheets in the historical example are a variation on the hooked endsheet used in my lapped component models. In this case, a whole bifolio is not used. Instead a leaf  is cut to the size of the textblock, but with approximately half an inch added to the width. One fold is made so that the leaf is now the width of the textblock + 0.25″. Another parallel fold is made  0.25″ from the first, creating a hook in which the first or last section will sit. This endsheet, therefore, has a small stub instead of a flyleaf.

After sewing, the textblock is set square and the spine glued up with hide glue. Thin pasteboards are adhered to the vellum supports and the fore-edge is plowed.

While the examples that I have seen are very square, I don’t see why a round couldn’t be put into the spine at this point – assuming this is considered a permanent binding structure. If these bindings were just meant to be temporary wrappers as Cloonan suggests (p. 45), however, shaping and trimming would not be necessary and could make rebinding more difficult.

The outside of the boards are then covered in decorative paper and the pastedowns are adhered to the inside. I used marbled paper as the covering material for my models. The green is a Atelier Flavio Aquilina paper, while the tan is a paper that I made during the workshop with the Chena River Marblers. To finish, the head and tail are trimmed, leaving turn-ins (and sometimes squares) at just the fore-edge.

Back to the subject of spine shaping, I made two different models to see how they would act. After fully opening and handling the version with the completely squared spine, it began to go concave rather quickly (left). On the second version, I rounded the spine just a bit before covering and it has retained its shape better (right).

All in all, I really like this structure for its speed, durability, and adaptability; repairing or rebinding this structure is relatively easy.  I just wish that I could buy modern editions in this form, rather than the glued up stacks of single sheets that you find in the bookstore today.

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Next up, I will be writing about the laced paper case and limp vellum structure. In an effort to be a little more productive with this blog, I’m going to try and make the posts a bit shorter, but commit to publishing one every Sunday.

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Cloonan, M. V. (1991). Early Bindings in Paper : A Brief History of European Hand-made Paper-covered Books with a Multilingual Glossary. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall.

Frost, G. (1982). Historical paper case binding and conservation rebinding. The New Bookbinder, 2, 64-67.

Rhodes, B. (1995). 18th and 19th century European and American paper binding structures: a case study of paper bindings in the American Museum of Natural History Library. Book and Paper Group Annual, 14, 51–62.

Rhodes states that, of the books in her survey, over half had labels supplied by the binder that were tooled or stamped on glazed paper (p. 53). I stamped mine on the Kwikprint with gold foil.

The text to board attachment for this structure is adhesive alone. Frost’s article has a very clear illustration of the hinging position of various styles of paper binding. As the lapped component falls under the “case constructon binding” style, the hinging point is a the seat of the shoulder – an “identifying characteristic of case binding structure” (p. 64). This contrasts with the text to cover attachment of laced-in structures (upcoming post), in that the laced or in-boards binding has the attachment at the point of the shoulder. Frost indicates that this characteristic alone is responsible for the “openability” of the case (p. 64) – although I would say that the case structure is far less durable than the laced-in variety.

Note: The bibliographies that I post at the bottom of my posts are always incomplete. If you know of further reading on this topic, I welcome your suggestions in the comments!

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Cloonan, M. V. (1991). Early Bindings in Paper : A Brief History of European Hand-made Paper-covered Books with a Multilingual Glossary. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall.

Frost, G. (1982). Historical paper case binding and conservation rebinding. The New Bookbinder, 2, 64-67.

Puglia, A. (1996). Pasteboards. The Book and Paper Group Annual, 15.

Rhodes, B. (1995). 18th and 19th century European and American paper binding structures: a case study of paper bindings in the American Museum of Natural History Library. Book and Paper Group Annual, 14, 51–62.

In February and March, the Boston University College of Fine Arts showed works by South African artists in two exhibitions celebrating the Caversham Press. Founded in 1985, the Caversham Press was created to give South African artists access to a professional and collaborative printmaking studio. Featuring over 120 works by 70 artists, the exhibition titled South Africa: Artists, Prints, Community, Twenty Five Years at The Caversham Press celebrated Caversham’s history and the diversity of South African printmaking. You can find a short article with a digital slide show here and the original press release here.

A central figure in the early years of the press, William Kentridge was also featured as the seventh annual Tim Hamill Visiting Artist Lecturer and in a concurrent exhibition, titled Three Artists at The Caversham Press: Deborah Bell, Robert Hodgins and William Kentridge.  As a side note, Kentridge also directed War Horse, an adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s World War I novel, currently playing at the Lincoln Center Theater in New York. While I haven’t yet seen the play, I recently watched the TED talk featuring Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler of Handspring Puppet Company and thought it was absolutely amazing.

But what does all of this have to do with bookbinding? As part of the exhibition, our program was approached by BU to create a number of large, custom portfolios for selections of prints from the show. This project gave us an excellent opportunity to experience the particular challenges of designing and completing a larger production project. The initial design called for a cloth-covered portfolio with three flaps to hold the prints, all enclosed in a case secured with ribbon ties.

While there are a number of ways to fabricate an item like this, the design of this particular portfolio had to play to our strengths, but not be slowed by our equipment and space limitations. On the one hand, we had 15 individuals capable of churning out a huge amount of work rather quickly; however, our department has only a single standing press that would accommodate the portfolio’s final dimensions. In our case, we made use of a modular structure composed of individual parts that could be fabricated by small teams and nipped in smaller presses, then assembled en-mass at the end. Before beginning work, we planned the entire project on paper, built prototypes, and received approval from the client. Templates of the individual parts of the portfolios were created during the design phase and, using these, all of the materials were first cut to size.

From these piles of individual parts, assembly began in stages.  Three flaps of 20 pt board covered in red Canapetta book cloth were created to fit the head, tail, and fore-edge of each portfolio.

A separate team went to work constructing the back out of matte board and Nideggen, a mouldmade paper.

The flaps were attached to the back board, leaving enough joint space to accommodate the thickness of the set of prints.

After placing a board of equal thickness to the prints inside the assembly…

…the whole thing was put into the standing press.As the stack of “print trays” pressed and dried, we prepared the cases of the portfolios. A chisel was used to cut slots into the cover boards for lacing through the tying ribbons.

We then set up an assembly line for the case construction. Two students used foam rollers to give the boards a quick, even coat of PVA. Another student placed each board onto pre-cut cloth, using a jig to line them up and give consistent hinge space at the spine.  After working the cloth down with a case folder and cutting the corners from the cloth, the cases were quickly nipped in the press.

In the next stage, the ribbons were laced through  the boards and the turn-ins were done.

The inside hinge of the case was then finished off with a strip of cloth.

A custom die was made for carbon stamping the titling using the Kensol.

At this point, the two parts of the portfolios were ready to be assembled. The back of each print tray was glued out and carefully aligned in the case.

The portfolios were then nipped again between press boards to ensure a good bond between the tray and case. In the final step, the inside front board of the portfolio was trimmed out and finished with a Nideggen paste-down to match the tray back. Here I am, working quickly to glue out the paste-down. It’s somewhat comforting to know that, at NBSS, Tini Miura and Bill Anthony are always looking down upon you as you work.

The portfolios were given a final press and allowed to completely dry under weight.

As a group, we had a lot of fun doing this project. Most of our curriculum is focused on individual work, and we don’t often get the chance to work together on a single project or develop our production methodology and technique. While we did not get to see the items that eventually went inside these portfolios, and we do not know where they will go or who will eventually own them, I like think that through this project and our intra-departmental collaboration, we were able to contribute to an international collaboration of craft.

Having just returned from a bookbinding pilgrimage to London, I’ve got loads to share about the many wonders we witnessed across the seas. But in the meantime as I sift through the trip photos, I’m going to try to get through a few quick posts about recent projects.

I thought an appropriate sequel to and co-mingling of the posts on case bindings and paper marbling would be to share the two leather case bindings that I finished using the textblocks with marbled edge treatment. In both cases, I used siding-up paper pulled from the same tray as the edges to get a marbled-all-over look. The results are a little over the top in that 19th century account book sort of way, but exude a certain degree of, shall we say, opulence.

I started out with the same basic form of textblock that I’ve used in other case bindings. The sections are sewn on flattened cord with a thick enough thread to get some swell. For these books I used an endpaper structure that included a waste sheet. As the leather is worked damp, I wanted to avoid any dye transfer to the endpapers during covering.

After sewing, the textblock was glued up and rounded and backed. The textblock forwarding did distort the edge marbling a bit: I ended up with a bit of stair-stepping on the fore-edge that produced some white lines through the pattern. I imagine this effect would be reduced if my rounding and backing were better. Practice, practice!

The case is constructed in much the same way as the “built-in” groove or Bradel-style case: a stiff spine strip adhered to strong paper that is attached to the boards before covering, with enough space between the spine and boards for an open joint. The leather-covered case structure has two adaptations: increased joint spacing to accommodate the thicker leather and a bit of a headcap “cheat” known as the Bart. To achieve this feature, the spine strip material is trimmed slightly longer than the height of the boards and given a rounded shape with many, small darts. The final shape looks like Bart Simpson’s head – thus the nickname. I failed to get a picture, but here is the diagram from my notes to illustrate.

A horizontal score line at the tips of the darts allow the shape to fold over after covering – but more on that later.

Arthur Johnson’s Manual of Bookbinding (1978) has a nice description of covering a quarter or half binding with an open joint (pp. 108-114). The method I used for covering and finishing these case bindings was similar, except for the formation of the headcaps and, of course, being done off the book. As a first year, I’m still grappling with the very basics of leather paring and covering. Quarter or half-style covering are excellent starting points for me because most of the paring can be done on the Scharf-Fix, and the pieces of leather are not very large – so any mistakes aren’t all that expensive. After flat paring the leather for the spine and the corners to the same thickness as my in-filling material (~0.5mm), I further pared the turn-ins German-style to a thickness that would easily hold a fold. Linda Blaser and Frank Mowery’s handout from the 1998 GBW Standards seminar has a good description of German paring with the Scharf-Fix (found here). As a final step, the head and tail turn-ins of the spine strip are further shaped and “feathered” out with the knife.

The leather is evenly dampened from the hair side with a sponge, thickly pasted up (with flour paste), and set aside for a moment. The paste is then carefully scraped off with a bit of board and a new thin layer of paste is applied. The corners and spine of the case are then covered and the headcaps set with the textblock in the case.

Of covering with leather, Johnson (1978) says, ” Leather is an amenable material: it can be modeled while wet and will retain its shape on drying. However, it is marked easily in its wet state and excessive use of the folder will cause scoring” (p. 108). I learned this lesson all too well while covering these books, and lo, it was a painful one to learn.

The headcaps made with “the Bart” are satisfying because they hug the endbands well, although I’ve got some improvements to make on mine.  Like many aspects of bookbinding, unrefined work early on compounds as you go along; Uneven and asymmetrical paring with the knife results in headcaps that are puffier on one side than the other.

The same headcap from the back.

When the leather has had ample time to dry, the case is then ready for siding up.  I did not edge pare the leather that goes down onto the board, and because it is quite thick. The face of each board must be in-filled to the same height so as to avoid unsightly lumps in the transition from leather to siding up material.  As a finishing touch to these case bindings, also I tooled thin, blind lines where the leather meets the siding up paper at both the corners and the spine edges. The image below shows some detail.

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In the queue, I’ve got split board bindings, German paper bindings, a portfolio production, limp leather bindings, and our trip to England. Your patience, Gentle Reader, soon will be rewarded!

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Blaser, L. & Mowery, J. F. (1998). “English and German Style Leather Paring“. Guild of Book Worker Standards of Excellence Seminar, Greensboro, NC.

Johnson, A. W. (1978). Manual of Bookbinding. New York: Scribner.

As a segue between case binding and split-board binding, the first years spent some time making a style of book known, at least around our department, as On-set Boards.

Laura Young (1995) calls this a Bradel binding, a Bonnet, or a Bristol Board Binding. Technically, there is no real difference in sewing or board attachment from a Bradel-style case – the covers are just built up on the book rather than being constructed separately and attached to the textblock later. The on-set boards structure mostly just functions as an academic exercise in covering  in-boards, but it does allow you to get very small and even squares. In describing the method for putting one together and comparing the final product to a case structure, this should become more clear. I have images of a couple of different books in this post to illustrate the process.

First off, the textblock is prepared in the usual way, but with two slight modifications to the endpaper structure and sewing supports. The endpapers for this binding must include a waste sheet. This is either a single folio that is wrapped around the flyleaf/pastedown or a stub that is tipped between the first and second sections with a conjugate leaf that wraps around the outside of the textblock. Either way, you end up with a protective sheet, sewn through the fold, on the outside of the front and back of the textblock. The sewing supports should be of a variety that can be fanned out and pasted down flat, such as German-style linen tapes or flattened cords. The tapes are a bit easier to work with, since they start out woven and can be frayed out when the sewing is done.

Flattened cords are a bit trickier to handle. Beginning with a medium weight cord, the individual parts are unwound and “combed through” to separate out the fibers. The frayed cord is then worked with the back side of the bookbinders knife to remove all of the short fibers. When finished, only the long individual fibers are left and these can be wrapped in paper to keep them together during sewing. Now they are known as moustaches.

As the sections are sewn, the paper wrapper can be shifted out of the way.

When finished, it looks like this:

Next the book is glued up, rounded and backed, endbands put on, and spine lined with textile and/or paper, etc. At this stage, the frayed out tapes or cords are pasted to the waste sheet and fanned out. The waste sheet is also torn down from the head and tail at the tip of the shoulder enough to accommodate the cloth turn-in. This will make sense later on.

In the next step, the bonnet is constructed. This is composed of the spine stiffening strip, cut to spine width and oversized in length, and a piece of thin, strong paper that is about 4″ wider than the book spine and about 2″ longer. The bonnet is glued out (leaving a half-inch or so on the sides unglued) and the spine stiffener is placed at its center. The bonnet is then gloved onto the textblock and worked into the shoulder and flat onto the waste sheet. When dry, the edges of the bonnet can be scarf-torn off – like in the image below.

At this point, it is best to re-open the torn waste sheet at the head and tail with the bonefolder, just in case any adhesive got in. Next, boards can be cut to height – but left long at the fore-edge. A few inches of the spine edge of the board is glued up and the board is placed in position on the textblock. When both boards are evenly on, the book is nipped. After drying, the part of the waste sheet that is not adhered to the inside of the board can be scarfed off and lightly sanded smooth. The extra length of the bonnet is trimmed flush with the boards using scissors, and the fore-edges of the boards are trimmed to give even shoulders all the way around. The book is now ready to be covered. For full cloth covering, the whole piece of cloth is glued out, placed onto the front board, worked into the front joint and around the spine. The next joint is then worked and finally, the cloth is adhered to the back board. At this point the head and tail edges of cloth are turned in, going between the spine of the textblock and the bonnet and taking advantage of those tears in the waste sheet at the head and tail. The image below shows both the board attachment and one complete turn-in. The turn-in in the foreground is about to be done.

After that, the fore-edge turn-ins are done, trimmed out, the endpapers pasted down, and the book is nipped again. The resulting binding is structurally like a case, but maybe a bit more refined on the inside since the squares are usually smaller and the board attachment is sanded smooth.

The finished inside looks like this:

This particular book – a copy of The Ghost Hunter and His Family that I was given in sheets – has a single core endband with a bead on the front. So far, I have better luck getting a nice a headcap shape when covering in-boards, rather than covering off the book. I guess I have a bad habit of crushing the endcaps of my case spines after turning-in.

This particular volume is kind of small and printed on thick paper, so there isn’t really any drape in the opening.

I also used this structure to bind a copy of Don Etherington’s Bookbinding & Conservation : A Sixty-year Odyssey of Art and Craft. This one is covered in black Canapetta with a black goatskin label stamped in gold.

Trying to keep it simple, I used black Ingres for endsheets. I also learned that completely black books are very hard to photograph clearly on a light background.

This book is much larger than the other, so the opening looks a little better.

I haven’t had a chance to read this one yet. It’s next on my list after I finish Julia Miller’s Books Will Speak Plain.

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Next time on Work of the Hand: a workshop with the Chena River Marblers, a portfolio production project, and split-board bindings. Not sure which order, but they are all in the works!

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Young, L. S. (1995). Bookbinding & conservation by hand : A working guide. New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press.

Etherington, D. (1999). Bookbinding & conservation : A sixty-year odyssey of art and craft. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press.

A custom-fit enclosure can protect a book from abrasion, environmental damage, and – if the volume is in particularly rough shape – keep all the parts together. In the first year curriculum we practice a few different styles of book enclosures and some time ago we spent a few days making drop-spine or clamshell boxes. These enclosures are constructed in three parts: a three-walled tray of binder’s board is made to fit the object and covered with book cloth, a second tray is made to fit the first, and the two trays are then put in a cloth-covered case. The trays are often lined with pH neutral paper.

This enclosure was made to hold my Medieval link stitch model.

On this particular box, I included a label well in the spine piece with a leather label with blind stamping. Unfortunately the text of the label did not come out in any of my pictures.

In bookbinding (as is probably true of craftsmanship in general), one can always learn a new way of doing things. Before coming to NBSS, I had learned at least two different methods for constructing and covering a standard clamshell box, and this time around I learned a third. We went by Linda Lembke’s instructions for construction and covering, and I found this method to create less bulk at the corners of the trays. Lembke is the proprietor of the Green River Bindery in Vermont and has taught workshops at NBSS in the past. One must contact her directly for a copy of her instructions, but the Preservation Department at Cornell’s library has made their instructions for creating a clamshell available in PDF form here.

In addition to the regular clamshell, we also made a form known in our program as the French Tray. Jeff says that he learned this one from Adam Larsson – so it might be known in other circles by a different name. This box is particularly useful for stacks of loose items (like cards or pictures) because the open sides allow the user to easily grasp and lift them out.

Note: we unpacked a new digital camera at school, so I’ve started putting a ColorChecker in my photos to ensure that I’m getting a representational digital image. Please bear with me as a work out the kinks.

This enclosure was made to hold my aluminum sharpening plates and strop.

The construction of this style of box is a bit different from the standard clamshell. The walls for each end of the open-sided tray are adhered in a line (with joint space between) to a strip of book cloth. The cloth is then turned in at the sides and rolled around the walls to completely cover them. A flange of cloth remains. The walls are then folded around the base and the cloth flange is adhered to the bottom of the tray. The top tray and case are constructed in the usual way.

I used this box as an opportunity to try making securing straps with snaps. On a recent field trip to the Boston Athenaeum, I noticed that a number of their vellum over boards bindings are kept in clamshells secured with snaps instead of a box with a pressure lid.

I used a snap-setter (kind of like this one) to put snaps in long strips of folded and glued bookcloth. At the stage in which the trays are being cased in, the straps are adhered between each tray and case. The snaps are much more secure than I anticipated – but in the future I will leave a bit more of a pull tab on the strap so that they are more easily opened.

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Next episode: Onset Boards