...a crisp specimen of the kind of binding
done in Ireland in the middle of the 18th century. Quite easily distinguishable from the binding done anywhere else, and in its technical quality as good as anything done in any other European country during the 18th century. Up in the north side of Dublin, behind Mountjoy Square in Belvidere Court, is the workshop of John Newman and Son, craft bookbinders. John Newman is the owner and head of the firm,
and Des Breen is the general manager in charge of the craft binding division. A customer wants a modern printed book put
into a special binding. Theresa Keane has been with the firm since
she was 14. She sets up the sewing frame. The gatherings are lined up and put into a
press so that the three saw cuts can be made in the back to take the recessed cords. Each gathering of leaves must be individually
secured by sewing with linen thread in the three recessed hemp chords. Nearly all the books we handle today are in
fact folded, sewn and cased by machinery. The hand crafted binding is a rarity, but
it is of much sounder construction than the ordinary books we buy. Des Breen looks through the illustrations
of the book in search of a suitable theme to suggest the design of the finished cover. He finds it in a map of Acapulco which will
be translated into a mosaic of coloured leathers. First he must make a rough sketch, remembering
that it must form the upper cover, wrap round the back, and continue over the lower cover. He works out his colour scheme using felt
pens. Now he must make an accurate template or pattern
from which he will work. The book now passes to Dessie Smith who puts it
in a lying-in press so that he can use the plough, which is a kind of plane, to make
the top edge regular and smooth to be gilded. The plough and the lying-in press are not
very often used nowadays. The only country in Europe which has had a
continuous tradition of fine book binding from the middle ages to the present day is
France. It's all the more remarkable that for a short
period in the middle of the 18th century, in the words of the greatest living English
expert, "Dublin vied with Paris for the leadership of the art". This is real gold leaf, the slightest puff
of air will blow it away. Gold is an incredibly ductile metal. A cubic inch of it can be beaten out so thin
as will easily cover the floor of a good-sized room. Dessie lays it on a pad of chamois leather
and cuts it into sections. Gold leaf is extremely fragile and disintegrates
easily. Often the pad is surrounded by a protective
windbreak of cardboard. He uses the slight greasiness of his own hair
to lift the gold. Now he paints the top edge with glair, which
is white of egg and acts as an adhesive. He must lay the gold leaf on quickly before
the glair dries. He presses it home deftly with a burnisher
through a piece of thin paper. In the old days when there might be many books
lined up and one person, perhaps an apprentice, on this job and nothing else for weeks on
end, it could be very hard indeed on the shoulders. Beeswax is rubbed on a piece of chamois leather
and over the gold. This helps to lubricate the agate-tipped burnisher,
which is used across the grain of the leaves to polish the gold. Rounding and jointing come next. If the back of the book were to be left flat
it would very soon be distorted in use, and the pages would sag outwards in an unsightly
way. So it is hammered round to prevent this and
put back into the press and hammered again so as to make the recesses into which the
upper and lower boards will fit snugly. The three cords can be seen sticking out on
both sides. Theresa sews on the head and tail bands which
are of goat skin backed with vellum and whipped round with silk in two colours. In inferior work these are often false, but
not here. Here they are securely attached and give the
book strength at the place where it is liable to be pulled off the shelf. Dessie Smith chops the boards for the cover
to size. Des Breen will take over now. Des uses the template as a pattern to trace
around... ...and will then cut out the shape. This job is called "pasting up". Now he laminates together the three boards,
this will give them strength and also the depth needed for the relief effect of the
map. The boards are put in a bench press to be
stuck or nipped. The edges are bevelled with a very sharp knife
to give a cushioned effect. He punches the holes through the bands and
makes little grooves for bands to lie snugly in. The ends of the bands are frayed out, which
is called "flossing", so that they will lie down smoothly. In some old books they show very clearly under
the leather. The cords are tapped with a hammer into the
holes and grooves. Now, at last, we come to the actual leather,
Morocco, that's to say goat skin of contrasting colours. One for the sea, one for the land, and one
for the road. Pieces are cut out with a sharp knife leaving
a margin around the templates. This margin is then skived to reduce the thickness
of the leather, and make a scarf joint, and to keep it thin where it is turned round the
edges of the boards. The leather is finally stuck onto the boards. A bone folder, which is a personal tool often
made by the bookbinder himself, is used to shape the leather over the edge of the board. Moisture in the paste has made the leather
more easily worked. He nips the leather in round the head cap. The leather for the island is called an "onlay". It is now time for the sea to be dropped into
place. By using the blue leather slightly over-size
he is able to put a ripple into it, which gives the effect of waves. The marbled papers for the end papers are
now chosen. These are made in Italy, England or France. The function of the end papers is to cover
up the leather where it is turned in inside the boards, to give a neat appearance, and
to ease the transition from the rigid covers to the flexible leaves. Another area of the bindery, where the heated
tools are used. From now on the various processes are collectively
called "finishing", and are all more or less decorative in their purpose and effect. The structural parts are called "forwarding"
and they are now over. Gold foil is laid over the part of the design
to be gilded. It is essential to get the temperature and
the pressure of the tool exactly right. Too hot and the gold will craze and the leather
be burned. Too cool and it will not stick properly and,
sooner or later, it will come off. The brass letters for the title are assembled
in a hand-held chase, which must also be heated. Des Breen has decided to do the lettering
in blind, that is to say without using gold leaf. First, he must accurately work out the spacing
for the words of the title. The back has been slightly damped so that
the leather will darken when the hot letters are applied. Lettering in blind is a very tricky job, it
calls for a steady hand because the same impressions must be gone over several times and any imprecision
would be disastrous. The impression of the little fort is slightly
damped, and then deepened. It's nearly finished then, is it? Yes, just a few small touches on it. I see. Yeah. We should be able to get it away to him next
week, perhaps. Yeah. It's very nice.
I'm very pleased with it anyway. Marsh's Library, the oldest public library
in Ireland, dating back to 1702, containing several valuable collections of books. Inevitably some of these require repair and
restoration. Mrs. Muriel McCarthy, the librarian. I think we have about twenty, but I have a
complete list with instructions, Des, which I'll give you, but I would like to... would
you mind if I just got some of them with you. No, sure. As they're a bit special. First of all, this one. As you can see, Des, both covers are off entirely,
and I'm afraid it also needs to be resewn. Exactly as it was originally, of course. And the other thing too is headbands, head
and tail bands. Yeah. That's the original head band, but is it possible
to use that again? I would retain the core, but eh... But that's all. That's all. 'Cause we'd like to keep as much as possible. Yeah, fine. As you know. Now, the other one, Des, is a little bit,
eh, difficult, there's only one cover, which is very typical of Marsh's. Yeah. But also, if you could... can you re-insert
those cords? Because it doesn't have to be resewn. Yeah, we can put slips on them and eh... Now, the important thing about this book is,
is that, eh, nothing else is to be done with it because of this particular annotation,
although it looks unimportant, in fact it really is extremely important. Because of this we can tell the whole history
of the book from that tiny, eh, annotation, you see it's "25.6.51. C.B. 1.3." So we know now that that means the twenty-fifth
of the sixth, sixteen fifty-one, and the "C.B." is Cornelius Bee, 1 and 3, that's the London
bookseller and he paid one and three (1/3d) for that little book. At Newman's the books must first be put into
a fumigation chamber where, for a fortnight, they are subjected to the vapour from crystals
of thymol, which will kill all moulds, insects, such as bookworms and silverfish and other
pests. The old animal glue is steamed off the back
of a book to be repaired using an ordinary kettle and scraped away with a knife. The book will then be re-backed with new leather. Cathal O'Grady is an expert in restoration
work. Old pages sometimes need to be cleaned. This is the portrait of Denis Hempson from
Bunting's second volume of "The Ancient Music of Ireland". Sometimes a kind of dry cleaning is used by
means of draft cleaning powder which lifts the stains without removing old inscriptions. By water came the stain on this plate of the
Galway harp, and by water it departs. There's the engraved title page. The stain removed. Richard Ferns specialises in the repair of
paper. He selects a sheet of long-fibred Japanese
rice paper. It must not be cut out to make the repair,
but carefully pricked around in a shape which will mate with the torn original. And then itself must be torn so as to retain
the strength of the long, overlapping fibres. In the restoration of old and valuable books
only natural, water-soluble adhesives and animal glues must be used. Often the pages of old books which have become
weakened through use are re-enforced by a strip of special paper which is laminated
by heat to the edge of the old page. Finally, the surplus is trimmed off. Cathal O'Grady is taking the decorated back
off an old binding, using a very sharp knife with surgical skill. This is a very time-consuming job and calls
for incredible concentration and patience. He gets it off in one piece, like a man shearing
a sheep. Now the new leather is wrapped round the back
and tucked in under the old, like the lead flashing on a roof. The leather is nipped in over the six bands
with a pair of special band nipping pliers. Finally, the old back is put on again. The same process that we saw before, the gold leaf and glair, is being used for the lettering
of the title of this old book. Noel Dunne takes the tool off the heater,
cools it, and applies it, rocking it slightly. The surplus gold is removed, and the whole
tidied up, and very neat it looks. These are Victorian decorative tools mostly
of the romantic kind, incorporating interlace and motifs from the high crosses
and the Book of Kells. La Tène decoration, there's a triquetra. The tools used by the 18th century Irish binders
were quite different from these, but even more distinctively Irish. An ornamental flower is put in the centre
of a panel. The individually hand-bound book is a rarity
today, but the same skills are needed for the repair and restoration of older bindings
and so the continuity of the craft is assured.
What I would give to be a humble apprentice in that shop. This shit gets me so excited.
Hands is what got me interested in artisian videos in the first place. great series!
Great find. Watched it at regular speed.
Showing up to work with heavy machinery wearing suit and tie? Why not...
Is Count Dooku narrating?
Thank you for posting this. It's so hard to find resources on craft bookbinding...especially the gilding process....
That was beautiful, the refinery and craftsmanship of it all. The documentary editing was exemplary as well.
Absolutely outstanding. The dry rub to clean the paper blew me away. One of the greatest things I have watched in a long time, thank you for sharing
That was breathtaking. I wish I could do that.
Very neat it looks.
Im gonna have to start using that phrase more often.