A Description of a Few of Our Techniques:
PAPER REPAIR: For tattered and torn pages, Cat Tail Run Hand Bookbinding repairs the damaged areas using a variety of oriental tissues adhered with wheat starch paste. This method of paper repair is typical of that currently in use by book and paper conservation facilities throughout the world. The advantage of this style of repair is twofold: the repair can be easily reversed should the need arise, while at the same time it is amazingly strong and durable due to the long fibers present in oriental papers.
RESEWING: Linen thread is used in resewing volumes, because it is strong and resistant to dry-rot. We generally advocate resewing in the manner in which the book was originally sewn.
| REBACKING: This is the process whereby new material (leather for leather bindings, cloth for cloth bindings) is brought in under the original materials while saving as much of the original binding as possible. The goal of the restoration process is to make the new work blend in as closely as possible with the reused portions of the original cover. | EXCERPTS FROM NOTES ACCOMPANYING BOOKS IN OUR SHOP FOR RESTORATION "...so can you please restore my "Old Joy"--It is the only cookbook I can really cook from, and I've had it the 47 years I've been married..." "...it's from 1862...my great - grandfather was a soldier in the Civil War and it's his artillery manual from then. Can you please restore and preserve it so it can be passed on to my grandson?" |
REPRODUCTION BINDING: Sometimes the original binding is too badly deteriorated to be incorporated into the restoration process, or perhaps the original binding is missing entirely. In such cases, it may be suitable to design a cover in keeping with what was on the book originally or what is believed to be a reasonable approximation for a missing binding.
