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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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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This Is… used to be called Invisible Rhino, eh? But because there are no invisible rhinos in the entire book, the title has been revamped.. But there is life? Well, with the aid of a lot of huge and small corporations, I have recycled a bit of this and that. This book has eight signatures of four pages each for a total of about 128 blank pages.

Included are three cords that keep the notebook closed - two cords circumnavigate the tome while one just leaps over the front edge and wraps itself around the pink button.

What’s the purpose? Keep it closed? I think I need one for my mouth. Actually, my last book was quite plane: green cover and nothing else. This is a reaction to minimalism. Clutterism, I think I’ll call it. The endpapers are rough and torn which gives the book a bit of character.

On the back are the Japanese words: 手取川. This is pronounced: Tedorigawa. This is a sake manufacturer near here. It is also a river and the site of a major battle in a major war about 400 years ago. It is also the kanji for Tedorigawa Bookmakers.

What did we learn from this book: I like long stitch and will attempt it again. I also learned I need to much more careful whilst sewing it together; the long stitch is nice but the link stitch at the top and bottom are not very pretty. Downright ugly, if you ask me. But still, a cute little book with a lot of cheerful smiles about it.

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I added three more notebooks to my Cereal Series (see the post right below this one) and Finally! Finally! I got a coptic binding I like! On the fifth of five blank notebooks, the binding came out very nice. That’s a 20% success rate or, in baseball terms, I’m batting 200. Not so good, eh? Well, I was excited that the fifth one came out good so I don’t care if I’m batting .200 or not; it’s the Success of the Week. Pictures of the cover look like the ones from below so you can just flip between this post and that one.

Thanks for reading. I hope to get some audio up soon. Enjoy your week, too!

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Two more books from Tedorigawa Bookmakers‘ famous Cereal Series. These are blank notebooks with coptic binding and about 100 pages each.

Actually, one is 100 pages and the other is 120 pages but I don’t remember which is which. I suppose I could look it up….

The covers are from two cereal boxes. The book on the left says, “Genmai” (brown rice) “Flakes.” Like corn flakes except made out of genmai. The book on the right has, in small letters at the top, “Salad Cereal.” And then a series of pictures to show you how to make a salad on top of your cereal in three easy steps: put the cereal in a bowl, put salad fixings on the cereal, add dressing. Viola! Salad in a bowl!

On this pair of Cereal Series Blank Notebooks, I tried a different way to sewing the coptic binding: more precise and complex on the tail and head pieces (bottom and top). I liked the head and tail sewings but not the middle three. Usually I like the middle three sewings but not the end ones.

Things we learned on this project? Measuring and cutting straight are important. Also, just because I have black waxed thread, doesn’t mean I have to use it. i.e. Another color thread might have been better. Finally we learned that measuring, folding, and sewing is best done while not simultaneously watching a movie on cable.

Here you can see the basic size of the Cereal Series Blank Notebook. It fits quite nicely into an overcoat pocket and opens out flat for full use of the entire page. (200 grams of this cereal will get you 50% of your daily requirements of seven essential vitamins, iron, and calcium, according to the front.)

By the way, this cereal is made by Kellogg’s.

Thanks for reading and we hope to hear from you soon.

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Life gobbled me up and spit me out and I didn’t finish the fourteen books in fourteen days but I finished one. And three more are in a variety of stages of unfinished which, given a few more hours, they will be in a different variety of stages of unfinished. However, I am enjoying trying to do them and will post a photo or three with in a few days or so as I gradually and purposefully march toward completion! I hope.

Special sound effects by suonho at freesound.org. Thanks for reading and listening.

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