手取川製本 ~ Tedorigawa

Here's the thing: Islamic bindings have a flap that folds over the front of the book. In the right hands, they are exquisitely decorated. The flap serves at least two functions. First, it protects the fore edge of the book. Second, it can serve as a bookmark as your plow through the content, if any.

I made these two lined notebooks simultaneously for two reasons. First, if you're going to print out a bunch of pages for a notebook, you might as well do a couple. Second, the first book is a learning experience while the second book benefits from mistakes and insights of the first book.

The process for these books was:

1) Print out 40 sheets of lined and numbered pages, then fold them. Each book got 20 pages, for 80 numbered pages total. I printed them on a Epson printer, not a hand printer like Gutenberg did.

2) Fold, sew, and attach the mull and extra strip of paper to the spine.

3) Measure and cut the book boards which, in this case was thick construction paper.

4) Measure and cut the book cloth. The cloth I chose has been hanging around my desk begging to be used for at least five years. It is slightly Arabic-looking if you don't know anything about Arabic writing. Upon closer research, it looks closer to Tamil. If anyone knows what it really is, let me know.

5) Measure and cut the endpapers. There are normally two endpapers per book but because this book has that extra flap, there are four endpapers~ two for the text block and two for that extra flap.

6) Glue everything together.

7) Sew the snaps to the front cover and the extra flap. The snaps keep the book closed.

From start (printing) to finish (sewing the snaps) probably took me 2.5 ~ 3 hours.

These notebooks are pocket-sized A6, 80 numbered pages, five signatures of four sheets each, with a snap to keep it closed. If I were to do it again, and I'm think I will only in a larger size, I will sew the snaps before gluing the endpapers in to hide the sewing.

And, for no particular reason, on the front page is a picture of Claire Clairmont, the  lover of Lord Byron and maybe the lover of Percy Shelly, too, while he was married to Mary Shelly, author of Frankenstein. Plus, she gave birth to Byron's daughter, Allegra, not Ada who went on to invent computer programming. On the back page is a picture of Kanazawa's main train station. Again, just because I could.

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I've been supposedly working on my novel Calvado to get it ready to print, bind, sell on Smashwords, and enjoy. Supposedly. Odd, isn't it, how something can always be found to put the real work off? Today I found yet another timeline error: Person A is supposed to be 17 but she's in the part of the book where she's 27. Or vice versa. It just means more time on the computer adding, subtracting, editing, and enjoying my life. A short excerpt:

"Now, as you gentlemen and ladies can easily observe, I have a naked body on a metal slab behind me. The police, bless their hearts, found him very early this morning, I had the privilege of doing the site analysis at about 3:00 AM so my middle name is Cranky today. Since our patient had absolutely no identification on him what-so-ever, we cannot contact his next of kin. The police then hauled his ass in here. Now, this John Doe is dead. Am I right?"

Twenty-five medical students nodded their heads.

Dr. Henrietta 'Hank' Slovensky shook hers.

"No, you morons, John Doe is Not dead. And do you know why he is Not dead? Because you haven't checked to make sure he's dead. You can Not look at a patient from across the room and tell if said patient has croaked or not. For crying out loud, if you saw the chief of staff asleep in his office would you immediately assume he was Dead? My goodness, the hilarious consequence of that error are immense. Okay," Hank surveyed the group searching for the one she knew would faint at the sight of a blade inserted into the dead man's sternum. "You," she pointed at a pale-looking female with her long brown hair smashed under a surgical cap. "Get your over-educated butt over here and tell me what you see."

The long-haired medical student looked around to see if, by hope and chance, the medical examiner meant someone else, someone other than her.

"You!"

No, she didn't. The med student shuffled slowly to the cadaver.

"What's your name?"

"J...J..Jennifer."

"Well, J, J, Jennifer, educate the rest of us over-achievers what you see on the slab this morning."

"Well, ah, er. I see a man." Jennifer said. She glanced at the man's face but couldn't look at him for long.

"Very good. So, we have a John Doe who, as Jennifer has aptly pointed out by examining his genitalia in detail, a man. What else?"

"Hmm, his chest seems to be, uh, damaged."

"Ah, yes," Hank agreed. "The old damaged chest ploy. J, J, Jennifer, honey, if you ever want to get through this autopsy, and by ever I mean sometime in the next, oh, 28 minutes, you're going to have to speed up your examination. Gather round, my little ducklings, gather round. Now, as Jennifer as ascertained, our John Doe has a penis and a crushed chest cavity. What does that indicate? You," Hank pointed at a male student.

"He got hit by something heavy?"

"He did?" Hank questioned.

"I mean, uh, he might have gotten hit by something, like, heavy?"

"Is that a question? Jennifer, was that a question? It sounded like a question. Voice raised at the end of a sentence, like, you know? Clear precise speech, ducklings, clear and precise speech, if you don't mind. As it turns out, our Mr. Doe met the steering wheel of his car."

"Excuse me, Dr. Slovensky?"

Hank turned to the questioner: a tall, dark-haired woman with the looks of a fashion model. She held a clipboard to her ample breasts; her hair was tied back in a severe bun. Probably, Hank thought, to suggest studiousness instead of slutishness.

"Yes?" Hank asked.

"I, uh, I think I know this, uh, John Doe."

And thus, we meet the main character: Model/Medical student Calvado who will embark on a model love affair with the John Doe and attempt to learn who he is.

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When it comes to putting a book together there are quite a few things that perplex me. The one that constantly perplexes me is the width of the book boards for the front and back covers. I've run across a few formulas and they, of course, all differ.

Formula One: The width of the textblock plus the square of the book minus the thickness of the book board times two. Whew. So, a textblock that is 12 cm wide and a square of the book at 2mm with 2mm-thick book boards would result in: 120 + 2 - 4 = 118.

Formula Two: The textblock - 2mm. In the example above the 120 - 2 = 118. Same answer as above, eh?

Formula Three: The textblock + the square of the book - the hinge. The hinge is either 3.5 times the thickness of the book board or 2 times the thickness of the book board, depending on who you ask. So, in our example:

(Hinge = 3.5 x) 120 + 2 - 7 = 115. Or, (Hinge = 2 x) 120 + 2 - 4 = 118. Hmm. There seems to be a consensus of 118, if you follow the 2 times the board thickness.

Personally, I'm not sure which is best but I always go for the simplest to remember. In this case that would be the textblock - 2 mm. (If the board is 2 mm thick.) I hope if there is a simpler or more accepted formula, someone can teach me but so far I think I'll have to stick with the minus 2 mm for my width measurements.

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Yes, I know. Two episodes ago I said I'd talk about measuring covers for the book. But, but, something exciting came along! Again. This time it is two classic horror stories - well, three if you count them all. The first one is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Not so much a horror story as a philosophical novel about what it means to be human. The movie is a bit different from the novel, as you might expect.

The second is the TwitterBlog-entry-like epistle novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Lots of letters flung back and forth, some of which sound like Twitter entries. Like the opening sentence  - which is too long for Twitter (and with proper vocabulary - should have, not should of) , but you might get the point.

Left Munich at 8:35 PM on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late.

The third novelette - literally written simultaneously with Frankenstein - is The Vampyre by John Polidori. This is considered the first vampire story and is only about 25 pages long. (Polidori, Shelley, Mr. Shelley, and Lord Byron were shacked up in Geneva one dark and stormy night and decided to write horror stories; Mary's has lasted the longest while Polidori's generated a new genre which, unfortunately, has culminated in the current vampire-that-twinkles genre.)

I slapped all three on InDesign, manipulated the text, added a few pictures, imposed them on CheapImposter, printed out the pages, and will now cheerfully sew them together. There are 27 signatures: Frank printed out an even eleven; Dracula snaked out 16, probably because of the added Vampyre novelette. This is going to take a couple of hours of sewing*, at least. The paper is from etranger di costarica, brown, and made in Japan.

Soon I will attempt to round their backs. This will be my third and fourth attempts at roundback books. Frankenstein in one book; Dracula and The Vampyre in another volume.

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I know in Episode 101 I said I was going to talk about how I think I make covers for the books I have sewn and glued together but in the short space between that episode and now I ran across a street fair full of artists, beer salesmen, zakka goodies, and antique dealers selling their wares. Naturally, I had to look at the older women (and, yes, they were all older women) selling cloth.

And I was seduced into buy some. Here are two photos of the bundles of pieces of cloth I was suckered into purchasing. Fortunately for not much cash because the women couldn't guarantee how big the pieces of cloth were. For the most part, I can make A6-sized books with a lot of the cloth and use some of the narrower scraps for the spine in other books.

Now, of course, I'm totally in trouble because now, of course, I have to start backing these bits of cloth with paper to make them all usable for book cloth and then I have to make books that fit. And this after I told myself not to buy anymore book cloth until I have used up all I have now. I never listen to me.

Next week: The Cover (maybe).

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This episode will be about what I think I do when I make books. A few years ago I started hauling around a bunch of junk that I need to make a book. This included only the essentials like: thread, two curved needles, a triangle, and a beeswax candle. (If the power goes out, I'm good.)

I usually always have my keys with me – or they're lost somewhere in plain sight – and my key chain is a small surfboard which works perfectly as a bone folder. I also have a plastic red bone folder just in case I lose my keys. But before sewing the signatures, I need to print them out.

The printing process uses two or three computer programs. First, I slap the text into InDesign. This is where I manipulate the text, add photos, and create superfluous decorations. I export the document as a PDF and open CheapImpostor, which imposes the pages. CheapImpostor makes two files: Odd and Even pages which open in Preview. (All of these programs are on my Mac. If you use Windows, your mileage may vary.)

After Preview opens the odd and even pages, I print them out and, if I put the paper in the printer correctly, they come out in order. I fold the resulting imposed pages into signatures. Then I use my triangle to align the signatures and determine where I want to punch in the holes. I draw a line, and then, using one of the needles, punch the holes in. I used to use an awl and a block of wood to make the holes in the signatures but sitting in a coffee shop pounding holes with an awl is a tad disturbing to the other customers and baristas so I switched to a silent needle.

Then I measure out the thread, wax it with the candle, thread it through the needle and I'm all set to sew the signatures. An eight-signature textblock takes me about 45 minutes. Bigger textblocks take longer, of course. Usually I try to sew it in one sitting but if I can do 20 minutes here and there, it works out, too. After sewing the signatures, I'm reading to glue, add mull, add endpapers, and other finishing touches on the textblock. This I do at home so I end up sometimes with four or five books to be glued at the same time. Once I had seven or eight books waiting to be glued. Good times.

Next week: The Cover

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Many many moons ago I received an e-book of Seth Harwood's This Is Life (a Jack Palms novel). Also many moons ago I printed it out and sewed it together. I also lined the spine. Then I set it on my pile of To Bind Naked books and went about my life. For a long time. Last week I managed to print out a cover and bind the whole shebang together.

The book is about 165 pages, A5 in size, hardback, and with a blue book cloth running down the spine. The cover paper is thick. It is from Strathmore and stiff. The photo was pulled off the internet and dropped into InDesign where the whole cover was arranged, rearranged, and finally printed out. The endpapers are plain brown which, if I were to do this over again, I would make metallic grey or have a red car door with bullet holes in it (you have to read the book).

What did we learn from this excursion? This is a series of bindings I've been working on to improve my binding experience. The others were the half-bound notebooks (Seen below in Episode 99) and a smaller blank notebook, also half-bound. I'm teaching myself how to put on a spine separate from the cover and to add the corners. What I learned from This Is Life is to make the paper cover slightly larger (about 2~5 mm) than needed so that it fits nicely under the book cloth.  Again, measuring accuracy is important.

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This weekend I spent way too many hours making books. Not that I made a lot of books but I learned to do things I haven't done before. For example, half binding is the book cover that has the corners and spine the same material but the main part of the book cover is of another material. I made three of those.

The picture above shows the third one. It is a 200-pages, lined journal, A5 in size. (Or, for my American friends 6.25 x 8.5 inches) Half bound, as you can see. Measuring is important. I keep saying that but it really is true: the corner pieces have to be the same size, the middle spine cover has to balance on either side of the spine and, of course, the middle bit has to reach under the corner and spine pieces. All very left brain.

Before the third book, I made one from a recycled Ritz cracker box and this book. The front is simpler but the corner bits look better, I think, because the measuring was better. It is about 100 pages, lined, and the same size as the other. The lines of both books are both light red and light blue (they change color mid-page).

I have on my work table two more books I need to bind. One is a novel and the other is a lined journal with about 400 pages. The journal will be half bound (as the binder is half-baked), while the novel will be quarter bound (just the spine cover). Both will push my personal envelope by having print on the cover. Should be interesting.

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I just read a book about being a professional vs an amateur. One point the author made that was interesting is that a professional, no matter how successful she is, studies with a teacher. I thought about that. Tiger Woods, one of the best golfers in the world, has a golf teacher; Sir John Gielgud, one of the best actors of his generation, worked with an acting teacher, too. Another point the author made was that professionals never assume they know everything about their craft. Because they know they don't know everything, they have teachers.

Another item the author pointed out, was that amateurs can always find ways to procrastinate: cleaning their keyboards, organizing piles of paper, taking care of sick children. Professionals, he stated, worked. Which gets me to the planning stages. Amateurs can plan forever. Professionals take what comes and try to make the best of things.

Which gets me back to my bookbinding. I'm planning (ha!) on taking a couple of classes next month. One for rounded back binding (pictures here are not of my doing); and one of making book cloth. The books I've made in a workshop seem to be better than the ones I make by myself. Why is that? Is the presence of a teacher - even if that teacher is not teaching anything remarkably new - enough to raise the level of my bookbinding? Is that why Woods and Gielgud took classes? To improve? Great idea.

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This last weekend I experimented with printing on book cloth, something I have never done before. The printer is old and managed to print most of the cover I wanted to use. As you can see, it smudged on the left side and didn't complete printing the Tedorigawa logo - just the top part.

The book itself is one of many experiments and attempts at improving my bookbinding skills. It has about seven signatures of five sheets each which makes it a 140-page book. However, the pages are made up of misprints from another A5 size book I made - a schedule book. The point of this book is the printing and the Measuring of the Spine Cover.

The spine cover is pretty well aligned and equal on both sides of the spine. The red book cloth is glued on fairly well, too. In fact, except for the printing part and the misprints on the inside, this is a fairly good book.

The good part is I am happy to try printing on book cloth again; this time with a newer, cleaner printer.

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