tedorigawabookmakers

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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