Period Fine Bindings
2019 Oak Bay Avenue V8R 1E5 Victoria, BC, Canada

So, the Memorial Bible is now gilt and handlettered, and dated in Roman numerals at the foot, and now has to be polished with a hot iron.

If you want to know how many tools it takes to do a cover like this, it's this many give or take half a dozen fillet rolls.

So, we now have all the tooling complete to the covers and there is just the edges of the boards to tool up along with the inner dentelles inside the cover....,.Then the next operation is to gild the spine, hand letter and date.

And a close up of the detail, showing how the depth of the tools create quite interesting corner patterns

So, the verso side is complete along with a gilt Latin inscription. Unfortunately the pictures don't do the true hue of the colours justice.....Note to self....Must get new camera......And now on with the recto side and hopefully they will match :)

Been busy with other stuff ....But now the spooky book is complete, with all the symbolism and text being relevant to the interior. Just need to make a simple clamshell box to afford it some protection.

Covers are now complete with hand lettering to the centre panel. Just the spine to do but its getting too close to beer O'clock.

Further progress on the spooky book, all of the seals and sigils apart from the centrepiece are now complete.

The Olympic Spirit of the North incorporating some of the most important symbols pertaining to its planet.

The centre of the recto side is now complete and now to start tooling the verso side....

So the 4 Cardinal angels with their characters are complete and now to tool the centrepiece and inner borders

So using, pallets (straight lined tools) gauges (curved tools), and 6pt, 8pt and 10pt hand letters I am now creating the 4 Cardinal Angels and their characters.

The book is now all coloured up and the first part of the Latin text hand lettered to both sides.

So, this is a classic case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. This red monstrosity when stripped down, needed so much restoration to the bolt folds I am surprised the cover stayed on at all!! The "laced-in cords" were just glued to the spine, not part of the sewing or the integral structure, and the "leather" cover was just tipped onto the spine in 3 places? The turn-ins were not even pared and the endpaper forced between the edge of the leather and the board? I c...an understand an amateur "having a go" but this is an unbelievably rare 1st edition of an occult book....So rare that there are only 2 recorded copies..... both of which are in institutions.....This is the only copy believed to be in private hands. So now we are going to create the esoteric binding it deserves. Its a 19thC book so all the page restoration is complete and it is now flexibly sewn on sunken cords with no laces as it now has an Oxford hollowback to period and bound in a raw calf ready to be coloured. See more

August 4th......A milestone for me as its the day I started my apprenticeship 46 years ago and also the day I started this business 37 years ago :) Just have to polish this one with a hot iron and were done.

Another large Bible complete and ready for polishing with a hot iron. Its Beer OClock. Happy Solstice! Yall stay safe now.

Tooling the edges to "Too Slim and the Tail Draggers" and we got flames coming off this here tool....This must be the Codex Gigas (The Devils Bible)!!!!!!

Loud music and red hot tools, were really smokin now!

So the centrepiece is complete in a Rosy Cross sort of way, just the edges to tool up then start again on the other side. It will look completely different again when I glaze and hot iron the leather........Beer Oclock is calling so it all starts again tomorrow

The recto side near completion, you can get an idea now of how deep the tooling is, each tool uniform in depth. The outer mahogany colour is a relatively new formula I developed a few years ago. Its a simple formula, first shave a seasoned plank of mahogany and put all the shavings into a large jam kettle. Bring to the boil and reduce slowly down until the viscocity is that of tomatoe sauce. This is the resin that is strained and now goes through a fermentation process for around 5 months to extract the colour that is then made lightfast....I got the idea from Culpeppers English Physician (Herbal) 1652...Took a good while to perfect though.

Continuing with the Bible. The centre picture frame comprises of 2 outer double line fillet rolls with a centre ornate farthing wheel bordered with individual hand tools comprising of both left and right hand tools. The centre panel starts with a large gauge edged with left and right hand tools.

With all this madness going on with social distancing, restaurants closed etc...I thought Id cook a curry in the shop with all the trimmings. Chicken tikka balti Madras with onion salad and keema naan and poppadoms.....Balti in a bookshop anyone?

This is a small glimpse of the many subdivisions one has to master in traditional bookbinding. These are some of the dyes I manufacture. Leather dyes are generally aniline based that you can buy in small plastic pill like containers, whereas these dyes are all organic. The end alchemical looking bottle with the bulbous base is black plum, there is also crushed green walnut husks, beetroot, saffron, turmeric and brimstone (yellow) oak bark, woad (blue), plus others...A real m...agickal mix of pure alchemy. The dyes are all water based and go through a fermentation and straining process over several months and finally a preserve is added and they are then made lightfast as not to fade...,.They will also last many many years and not lose their integrity.....These are all my own formulae that took several years to perfect...Many failures were endured before any glimpse of success. The book is now prepared with my own blend of tallow for blind tooling the covers. See more

So the colours I will be using to dye the leather will be mahogany and oak bark with beet. The dye is applied with a cloth and worked in with up to 12 layers. It is a freehand application without templates.

So the boards are mitred, beveled, sanded and applied, with the false bands applied to the spine. The leather is a pure veg tan kip side calf which has been in my tannage for two years and will take the whole of the skin to cover the book. But first it must be cut oversize, hot ironed, the edges pared and a grain bordered into it by hand.

Working on a 19thC large family Bible. Progress so far is, I have stripped the book and carefully removed the hollowback and primary linings and animal glue as not to damage the bolt folds. The leaves have been treated by various modes of conservation/restoration and re-sewn on sunken cords. The cords are not laced-in as this style of binding demands pseudo-split boards as the book weighs more than 20lb. Ive made and sewn in head and tail bands and applied a new primary linings and a 2 on 8 off Oxford hollowback. The boards are now laminated to the depth of the spines shoulder and are sanded and mitred ready to be attached to the tongues.

Hope yall are staying safe! This large folio is a 1683 King James Bible with a few variants to it. What we call a "Harlequin" book or a "marriage" as it has some earlier printing with it from a 1648 large folio plus some of the maps are from an early rare Dutch Bible and some from a Latin Vulgate....All in all it is pretty rare. Almost every page needed restoration of some kind or brittle pages treated and re-built. The binding I am doing is a variation of the Cambridge paneled calf. The image shows the book bound and the colours mixed, and also shows the depth of tooling, each tool burnished separately. Verso side complete.

Havent put anything on here for a while, trying to get the backlog down a little. Just finished printing and binding this very special edition of the "Ninth Gate" which I call "Nonus Porta". My version is nothing like the film prop, instead of filler text it has 9 unexpurgated occult and alchemy texts and is bound in a true 17thC style and housed in a clamshell box. This special edition has 27 texts...9 in each book...plus all 31 engravings including the 10 rejected variants....This client wanted the pentagram gilt within with smaller pentagrams.

So here we have the completion of the Baskett Bible. Ive continued the floral tooling to the spine also. These ornate styles are generally termed as "Royal" bindings due to their richness in decoration ie: "fit for a king", and was generally reserved for royalty and noblemen who employed the finest craftsmen of their day to execute their master craftsmen-ship. And in turn my own work is based upon those past masters of the last millennia such as Nicholas and Clovis Eve (16thC), Samuel Mearne, Willam Nott, (17thC), Roger Payne (18thC)....et al....who also embraced the whole of the craft.

Progress on the 1741 Baskett Bible. I decided to mix two of the styles from the last job but adding other different tools so that only the style is the same.

Worked throughout Christmas restoring the pages, re-sewing and rebinding for what is to be yet another very ornate binding, this time its a 1741 Baskett Bible. Verso side border complete.

Merry Christmas one and all, thank you for your support for the past year. Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year. Heres one I did earlier :)

Spines all complete, just the titles to hand letter, the board edges and the inner dentelles to blind tool and then all 7 polished with a hot iron....then there are just the clamshell boxes to make.

So with all 10 volumes covers now complete, it is time to start tooling the spines and handlettering and dating each one. The pic shows 7 of the 10 as the 3 volume Great Expectations was the first to be completed and couriered to the client.

One more book to complete and then all the spines will be gilt exactly the same with handlettered titles, volume numbers and dates

So here we have the 6th of the 7 volumes with the final gilt cover for the last 2 volumes of Dickens. This is the first ed of Hard Times again with different colours and different tooling making 4 different bindings but all in the same style...ie: with borders and centrepieces.

So these are the 3 sets so far, the first is Great Expectations 1st ed 3 volumes, the middle is 1837 Sketches by Boz, Dickens first book, first and second series, 3 volumes, and the 3rd is American Notes 2 volumes. Ive restored and bound them in the same style but the tooling is very different as are the colours. The GE colours are mahogany and oak bark with saffron, the Sketches are mahogany with cochineal and beet and the American Notes, black plums with cochineal. I have the recto side and volume 2 to tool yet and then the final 2 volumes making 10 volumes in all.

So these next 2 volumes of Dickens, Ive coloured them with fermented black plums and the centre panel is cochineal...Ive blind tooled the borders in the style of the previous but used different patterned tools and as you can see I have also tooled them with different tools but the style on all 3 sets so far is the same.

So now the Sketches covers are complete its time to start colouring the other 4 volumes and prepare them for blind tooling, starting with the 2 volume set of American Notes. As you can see, the Great Expectations and the Sketches by Boz are in the style of each other but with different tooling.

This bench is the heart and soul of the bindery.

Continuing with the Sketches by Boz, using a series of small tools again and in a similar style to the Great Expectations but using different tools as this is part of the same collection.

And now the covers are blind tooled on the inner and outer borders and the first side gilt using small tools to create a patterned border.....Only 5 more sides to do and then the centre panels.

Progress on the 7 volumes of Dickens. Ive decided to do the sets first so its the 3 volumes of Sketches by Boz followed by the 2 volumes of American Notes and the 2 single volumes of Hard Times and The Uncommercial Traveller as they will be coloured differently and tooled differently. The books are all restored and bound and now the 3 Boz are coloured using 2 different colours.

So, the progress on the Dickens is....The skins have been hot ironed, a grain bordered in by hand and pared. The false bands have been applied to the hollowbacks and the books covered. Yesterday was spent making the fermented organic dyes light fast and adding a mordant. We have 3 volumes of Sketches by Boz.....first and second series 1837. 2 volumes of American notes 1842, The Uncommercial Traveler 1861 and Hard Times 1854. So now the books will be capped on the edges and the edges coloured, turned-in, and headcaps and mitres formed.

Continuing with the Dickens Library Im building and restoring, Ive stripped and restored the pages of these 7 rare volumes, re-sewn them on sunken cords, lined the spines and added a good thick Oxford hollowback. The boards are cut, sanded and mitred and all are at the same stage for covering. Ive graded, prepared and cut the skin, now to hot iron the skin, border a grain into each skin by hand and pare the edges for the turn-ins....The books are then covered in the raw skin, the edges are capped and then the colours are applied ON the book.

The Great Expectations first issue turned out quite well and seem to match somewhat considering there are around 1150 impressions of tools on each book.