Back in the Bindery!
Old Meets New in our New Year
This book has been re-backed in leather with the old spine remounted. The top panel had been lost so we tooled it to match.
Happy New Year everyone! We were hard at it up until Christmas, and January certainly isn't breaking us in gently after the festive season!
After a couple of days to catch up with, and finish off a couple of smaller jobs we spent yesterday cleaning the workshop from top to bottom. Decluttering and tidying in preparation for an exciting year!
Having already been awarded a prestigious tender from a huge library in London towards the end of last year, we are preparing to apply for another! These large contracts are really important for us, not only to keep us all in a job, but for to prove how great our little bindery is! We are a small operation, but we take pride in taking the same care over each book in a big order as we do with those brought to us by individual customers who come to our door every day. The quality of every single book has to reach our high standards!
Our next tender application relies on us expanding our more specialised repair and conservation skills. As more and more binding of new books is being done on such a massive scale, mainly by machines, bookbinding by hand is becoming a dying art - especially book repair. Every book brought to us for restoration is different which makes our job more difficult, but also much more interesting!
We find a lot of people want us to rebind their favourite books, books they want to hand down to their children and some that have been passed down to them. Some folk find old books in charity shops and second hand bookshops and take a shine to them, love the smell of them. They are treasured for the pencil notes in the margins, inscriptions on the front page and beautiful illustrations - both the ones printed in the book and the ones your 3 year old scribbled when you left it out near the colouring pens. Books can hold incredible sentimental value for their owners, something a modern e-book could never manage.
If you have a book you'd like restored, just bring it in - we are always happy to chat about books! You could even have a go at fixing it yourself - under our expert supervision of course - on one of our Book Repair Classes.
A Bookbinders Favourite Tool
John - our Master Bookbinder
Our Unique Bone Folders
With a range of bookbinding tools now on offer to purchase from our online shop I thought it'd be timely to give you a little insight into our favourite one!
A bone folder is, unsurprisingly, traditionally made of bone, although these days you can find them produced in a few other materials. including brass and teflon.
It's purpose is primarily for paper folding, card making and origami but it has other uses. We use it for covering boxes and poking the cloth into all the nooks and crannies. It is also perfect for adding a little extra glue to a job, rubbing down paper to make sure it sticks and on the odd occasion I have seen it used for stirring coffee in our workshop!
You can see our small range of bone folders now in our online shop - all of ours started off life just like one of those. One of the reasons we are all so attached to our own particular folder is that they adapt and change as you use them. The way you rub every single spine when lining often creates a dip in one side. Sometimes we sharpen the end a little to get into a small space and unfortunately sometimes they break and so we shorten them and reshape them to continue their life. And needless to say we are in a complete panic when we misplace our folder!!
Mia - a beautiful array of shapes and sizes!
David - a name tag so no-one pinches it!
Kerry - relatively new clean ones!
Mine - one of these is teflon - non stick!
Gillian & Robin - Robin's sadly broke today!
Erin - a particularly pointed one for box making!
Check out our ever expanding online shop to see our current range of tools and materials. We don't sell anything that we don't use on a daily basis here in our workshop so it is all to true production bookbinding standard - and why not pick yourself up your own bone folder? It really is a bookbinders favourite tool!
We're Getting Ready for Christmas!
Have You Started Your Christmas Shopping Yet?!
Vouchers can be used against any products or services at our bindery.
We could repair or rebind a favourite book, make a brand new journal to your size and specifications or of course you could join us for one of our inspiring classes!
They can also be redeemed when purchasing tools or materials from our workshop or online shop.
Some examples of little notebooks - coming soon to our online shop! Over the next few weeks we will be expanding our online shop to offer a number of quirky products alongside all the tools and materials you could possibly need to have a go yourself!
Our vouchers come in several denominations or you can buy one of our Class Vouchers which can be redeemed for any class from Introduction to Bookbinding, to Book Repair and Box Making so your lucky recipient is free to chose when they'd like to attend from any available class dates. You can learn more about our classes here
You can also book classes through our website using a gift voucher.
Our Gift Vouchers could be the perfect present for the book lover in your life!
Need some more ideas for excellent presents - here are a few we love!
"The End" Bookend by Goodwin & Goodwin
Art Print by BookishlyUK
Library Stamp T-Shirt by The Literary Gift Company
If this sounds like your perfect Christmas gift why not share this post and drop a few hints!
Hot Off the Press!
See our Editorial in the new issue!
We are very excited to our name in print! We are the subject of a wonderful 5-page editorial in the new September/October issue of Homes & Interiors Scotland. Find it in newsagents now and let us know what you think? Learn more about our bindery and see some lovely images of the work we do. You can also find it online but it's so much more satisfying to hold the glossy magazine in your hands - as bookbinders we are all about the physical article!
Click here to read all about it!
