tedorigawabookmakers

What we have here is the largest book ever made by myself here at Tedorigawa Bookmakers. It is hardbound with book boards about 1.5 mm thick and has about 200 pages, I think. 180? In that neighborhood.

It is A4 size (11 3/4″ by 8 1/4″ • 21cm by 29.8cm). The cover is made of an old piece of cloth I got at a flea market at a Buddhist temple. Buddhism had nothing to do with either the flea market or the cloth; I don’t think. In any case, it was cheap but small - an odd size small - which finally fit perfectly this large book.

I found a tutorial at PapierDesign, also available on the YouTubes, and mostly followed it. I especially liked his sewing of the signatures. His Yootoob videos are easy to follow. On his website he has similar video tutorials in German and English.

It’s big and it was fun to make and it’s blank - You can do anything you want with it: turn it in to an accounting ledger, draw fabulous pictures of aging hippies, or collect autographs.

But what did I learn from this little adventure?

First, it takes time. From folding the A3 sheets to sewing to gluing to attaching the mull to measuring and cutting the book covers to backing the cloth to be used as book cloth to thinking about it all takes time. Time well spent because I think this is a fairly good production (despite a few flaws which I will get to later).

Second, don’t panic. (Hmm, I read that somewhere before….). Glue might set quickly but not That quickly.

Third, cut the corners Before you glue them. Big mistake that, but not untreatable. This is related to whether to panic or not. When one looks at one’s cover and notices that the corners have not been cut and the glue is thick and drying, one tends to panic. Quick cutting is required - not panic.

Finally, align the endpapers nicely. The one (minor?) flaw is that the endpapers are not straight, especially on the back cover. However, that is just the appeal of a handbound book, is it not? Those slight Human imperfections. To the right is a detail on the back endpaper.

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Behold, a blank notebook from my Cereal Series. This one, made of recycled paper, is 10cm by 15cm and is sort of almost kind of perfect bound. It started as perfect binding - the paperback style of binding with the gobs of glue. But the pages kept falling out. So I sewed the pages together using a very, very, very modified Chinese/Japanese stab binding: I didn’t sew from hole to hole, just one loop. This will keep the pages in but it will also limit the opening range, sort of like a stab binding limits the opening range. Something I don’t like so much.

The second thing is the thing the book is sitting on. It’s an old printer, obviously a Heidelberg, that sits in a modern printing office: the office has state-of-the-art equipment (computers, soy ink, high speed three-color printers the size of several Prius cars) and this old Heidelberg over in the corner. They still use it from time to time, too.

The cover of the book, remember that? is from a cereal box of brown rice flakes (vs corn flakes) and the Japanese on the front cover says that: 玄米 genmai = brown rice. The back cover states how many vitamins and calcium a nutritious brown rice flake breakfast can be (if you add milk, fruit, and don’t add sugar.)

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I just completed two green blank notebooks that will be used for episode guides for two other podcasts I make (Hokudai/Cast - Japanese, English, and Chinese with music; DinoSoar Pix - audio drama). Both books are essentially the same: 150 mm x 110 mm (a handy pocket size), 120 pages (six signatures of five sheets each), and hardbound with green book cloth.

Hokudai/Cast Episode Guide & DinoSoar Pix Episode Guide

The DinoSoar Pix Episode Guide is thinner and less, er, perfect. Neither are perfect but the DPEG one is the lesser of the two. The H/CEG has endpapers whilst the DPEG does not. I think the endpapers, plus the better gluing and sewing job on the H/CEG the nicer looking of the two. Also, the H/CEG was made second so the DPEG labored as sort of a practice book.

What did we learn from this little episode guide creating event? Alignment is important. Beside alignment, thinking would be nice. Thinking is always nice. By making DPEG first, I could think about how I should improve my next attempt, the H/CEG. Maybe I should always make three or four books at a time. By the time I get to book 4, it might just turn out okay.

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The title seems to mean “The The Walkure Class.” A bit odd, that.

Did a two-day bookbinding class. Day one was making book cloth from an old T-shirt (purchased during Wagner’s Ring opera.) and a bit of old cloth. Main impression: use a lot of glue. Day Two was making the cover with the book cloth, getting the text block into the cover - all without making too many mistakes. Okay, one: the text block had to be re-sewn because both knots came unraveled.

However, this was the first class I’ve taken for bookbinding and I learned quite a bit: folding, measuring, and cutting techniques. Also, I learned a new way to thread a needle and make an almost inconspicuous knot. A book press would be nice to have if I get into making books on a regular and competent basis. The important word being competent. As would a sink for cleaning brushes and hands.

The book - as can be seen at right - was eight sheets of paper of less than B6 for a total of 28 pages and two endpapers. Perfect binding was utilized and it was a successful operation, probably because of the excellent teacher(s). (One on the first day and two on the second day.) Both showed us students how to do things with great clarity.

One teacher (at left, the main teacher) sells binding supplies, paper, presses, and books, actually. She also accepts commissions and spends a lot of her time doing wedding albums, baby books, and whatnot. She works everyday on something.

What you see here is the workshop area, obviously. With a big  book press just visible sitting on the floor on the right side.

I’m hoping I don’t forget what I learned and hope to attend other classes in the future. The first teacher has an incredible link/long stitch book that took her many weeks to make. She’d be perfect to teach how to make it.

This second shot is of the back of the other teacher (at left) and a student (the guy) with a book press in better view.

The Interview - (Not a word-for-word translation, but the gist is right. I think.)

When and where did you learn bookbinding?

I first started about eight years ago with a private teacher in Jimbocho, Tokyo. (A section of Tokyo famous for used bookstores) I spent two years with him. After that I would sometimes show him my work.

When did you start your store?

Four years ago in another smaller location. I’ve been at this location for two years.

Is there a university or college in Japan that teaches bookbinding?

Not that I know of. There is one teacher at a school who teaches a course in Italian bookbinding, but that’s only one teacher and one class.

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In two weeks I will be taking a two-day bookbinding course from someone who makes money doing three things: teaching bookbinding, selling bookbinding supplies, and selling books she has bound. It is this last skill that intrigues me the most and I will be grilling her about how she does the business of binding books.

The class will start on day one, as classes are traditionally begun. I believe we will be up to our elbows in marbling endpapers. Something I have little interest in and no aptitude for. Should be fun. Then we will fold and sew. The second day, I believe, is spent designing and making covers and putting the book together. It is the designing and making covers bit that most intrigues me. I want to improve all aspects of the bookbinding process and it is this section that is the most challenging for me.

I will, hopefully, have much more information to pass along. Or a long rambling complaint.

Also, tonight I will add another notebook to my Cereal Series only this time it will be using an ice cream cover: Ice Cream Notes.

On the audio portion of our show tonight we feature: “Fire in the Heart” by Internal Flights from PodsafeAudio.com. Please enjoy.

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Well, I’ve done it. Finally. What have I done? I’ll tell you if you promise not to tell anyone (sounds like a Beatles tune). I finished my long-postponed Adelaide Crapsey book of poems. I selected 15 of her cinquains and slapped them together.

Let me explain the actual book. I used what I have been told are French Doors as a cover: the cover opens like a pair of doors. I used Chinese stab binding to attach the poems on the cover. It’s sort of a Chinese-French concoction. The book includes 15 poems and a short biography of Crapsey/explanation of what a cinquain is for a total of 19 pages. One photo of the author is included.

Cool book but it took too long to make and was too long in the making. Working on an edition of five. 15 Crapsey Cinquains. Only available at Tedorigawa Bookmakers. Swift.

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Here are some extremely well-designed books bound on the theme of water and employing a large variety of material. From the Guardian in the UK.

Over at Kimbooktu is the world’s most expensive book: Norman Mailer’s Moonfire about the US landing on the moon; the book is complete with moon rocks and Buzz Aldrin’s autograph (Buzz was the second man on the moon - he also searched for Noah’s Ark.)

And after organizing my workspace to such an efficient degree that I can’t find anything, I got a commission to make five books with wooden covers in the next 20 days. No problem, that’s over four days a book if I didn’t have a day-job and wanted to sleep.

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This book is called The Dance of the Fool for no particular reason except it popped into my head (the title, not the book) as I was struggling with the cutting, gluing, and aligning the hills and valleys on the cover.

The Dance of the Fool has rough front and back covers as I added hills and valleys to the bookboard. I cut into the board to make nice half-holes and added board to make the hills. My original intent was to cover them tightly with book cover cloth so that they really stood out. I failed in this attempt.

Then I added small squares of color onto the hills. Originally, the book cloth was going to very opaque so that we could see the colors behind the cloth. But the cloth wasn’t that opaque. You can still see just a hint, so I think it was, er, semi-successful.

I covered the whole thing with rough cover paper. The end papers are also rough but over the endpapers I added more rough paper with poems by Adelaide Crapsey (Moon Shadow and Amaze).

This is actually only the second book I made with what is called perfect binding. I stitched up the signatures, glued on some semi-rough paper to the sewed up signatures. The first book was the The Puccini La Boheme Book, which you can see below in Episode 29. The Puccini La Boheme Book is being used as a notebook by a junior high school student, by the way.

The interior has 80 pages of regular (?) paper - four signatures of five pages each. Regular means the stuff I can ‘liberate’ from the office copy machine.

What did we learn from The Dance of the Fool? First, measuring and accurately measuring is important. Second, planning is important - after I glued on the hills I thought it would have been nice to have covered them first. Also, next time, maybe, I will put the cover cloth under the colored squares so that it will look more pronounced.

What else would we do? Get really nice paper for the interior rather than use regular paper. Why? Because if every page were rough, it would be much better. Useless, perhaps, except for the occasional artist, but better. Now at least I can use it for a memo pad or a book wherein I can copy as many Adelaide Crapsey poems as I wish.

And now that I am finished with The Dance of the Fool book, I must do two things: Begin my Ice Cream book and, more importantly, go … dance! of course.

Music is October by the Scottish Guitar Quartet from Podsafeaudio.com

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A mere three solid months after my last book creation, I have enjoyably folded, sewed, and glued a small, multi-page blank notebook of recycled everything: the signatures are recycled B5 sheets folded into quarters, the boards for the covers and spine are made from recycled cardboard from a shirt, the cover itself is a flyer for a performance of Puccini’s La Boheme (so even the title is recycled, eh?) The endpapers, yellow, are also recycled from a larger project. I think the thread (unwaxed, by the way) that holds the signatures together is not recycled; nor the glue. Recycled glue. That would be an interesting business model.

There are about 30 sheets/signatures so there are about 120 pages in this book - small enough to be cute but not large enough to actually be used as a notebook - at least not by anyone who writes in cursive. As you can perhaps see, the pen shows a bit about how big this notebook is.

However, this is an enjoyable book. I have no idea why but it makes me chuckle when I hold it, look at it, view it from afar. Perhaps because it is small and - perhaps - useless. Perhaps it is not so useless. It is a book to cheer and encourage the mirth of one’s heart. (From La Boheme?)

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I have been tempted, I have succumbed; not to a disease hidden for centuries in the gold-engraved cover of an ancient aphrodisiac tome nor by the seductive charms of a temptress intent on stealing my soul, but, yes, I have been sucked into the vortex that is social media, the top dog of the social media pound, yes, twitter. Follow my random (and bookbinding related, I might add) tweets at (click to connect):

Tedorigawa Tweeterville

And now: The Further Adventures of

Tedorigawa: The Experimental Bookmaker

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