#full leather binding

[zhalfirin]

Blackpool - TheDivineComedian

Full leather Bradel binding with silver foil tooling on the cover, the edges and inside squares.

Materials used

Book case base construction - grey board layered spine stiffener - card stock cover material - vegetable tanned goat leather (black) tooling - foil (silver coloured)

Inner book paper - Munken pure (100gsm) endpapers - baroque board, embossed, shimmering (black, 230gsm) hinges - vegetable tanned goat leather (black) endbands - silk (grey, green)

Size ~A6

[zhalfirin-binds]

WIP - wheels whithin wheels (see the finished bind here)

decorating the case (hot tooling vs. cold tooling) It took me a while to give up on trying to find anything online that was anything like what I pictured for case decoration. So eventually I gave it a shot on my own.

I drew and re-drew the designs, copied them to size, did rough cut outs to arrange on the case and traced them through sketching paper. Which in return was fixed to the inside of the case so it would not shift while I was tracing and became my guide for tooling.

It took me several passes with different tools to get a nice imprint, but it was still not very distinct.

So finally I moistened the leather slightly and broke out a foil pen thing to go over the pattern with heat.

Last step was colouring the case, I did one copy first just in case it looks terrible, then there would still be a 'good' copy to send out to my typesetter.

For colouring I used a fine brush and gouache water colour and mixed it with methylcellulose to make the colours stick without smudging. Does it work? Well, for now it does. I haven't carried it around, but it withstood reading, I guess that's good enough. Was it necessary to add some glue to the paint? Who knows? I used watercolours once and they were kind of easy to brush off once they'd dried. So it felt like a good idea to prevent that by adding some methylcellulose glue.

This little piece of cardboard had a role too btw. I used it to even out the backside of the case and avoid having a step between the leather and the board. So when I drew on the case there was no area that could give and ruin the lines. I also taped the sketch paper guide to it.

[arcane-offerings]

Michael Howard, East Anglian Witches and Wizards, Witchcraft of the British Isles Series Book 4 (Richmond Vista, CA: Three Hands Press, 2017). Special Edition. Deluxe full leather. Limited to 33 Copies. https://www.ebay.com/itm/254602105414

[zhalfirin]

Rats in the walls - H. P. Lovecraft

More details of my binding of Rats in the Walls. The fish leather was rather rough looking but the dying and coated the surface so I could easily polish it a bit with an agate burnisher, smoothen the surface while enhancing the scale pattern on it. I also had a lot of fun with the typeset.

The size of the finished bind is roughly A8.

[zhalfirin]

Herbst im Mumintal - Tove Jansson (Moominvalley in November)

Half leather binding

materials used:

inner book textblock - purchased book in signatures, (partially repaired with japanese tissue paper) endpapers - lokta, backed with Schirting (thin, seized fabric) endbands - buttonhole silk

case boards - grey board 1,5mm spine stiffener - cardboard covering material, spine - leather (vegetable tanned) covering material boards - laser printed publishing paper cover art - original by Tove Jansson (altered for this case) title - hot stamped with genuine gold foil

original case of the purchased book

[zhalfirin]

Wheels within Wheels - Frank Lantz

My contribution as a binder for the Renegade Guild's Tiny Books Bang 2024 The idea is to split typesetter and bookbinder so I got the chance to bind 2 copies of this text. One for the wonderful @simply-sithel as the typesetter, one for myself.

materials used

case cover - binders board, 1,5 spine stiffener - cardboard leveling material - cardboard covering material - wallaby leather detail painted with acrylic paint) and goat leather cover decoration - hot tooled and partially painted with methylcellulose glue and gouache colours

inner book book body - Schleipen Fly 05, 115gsm endpapers - satogami paper (3 colours) endbands - button hole silk

format: 4,7 cm x 7,2 cm

(See WIP pictures here)

[zhalfirin]

The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe

These books were part of the Renegady Publishing Tiny Books Bang 2023 event.

Typesetting by @yarnnerd

Full leather binding with gauffered and painted cover, coloured edges, hot stamped spine title and protective slipcase. materials used:

cover binders board, 1,5 (case construction) leather, goatskin (covering material) colourshift acrylic paint heat active foil, silver (hot stamped title)

inner book munken polar, 100gsm (book body) munken polar, 100gsm, painted with oak gall ink (endpapers) colourshift acrylic paint (edge colouring) decorative paper, linnen thread (endbands)

slipcase bindersboard, 1 (case construction) satogami paper, black (lining and narrow sides) decorative paper (wide sides)

book size: 3,1cm x 4,7cm

[zhalfirin-binds]

Covering the case (of a Bradel leather binding)

This one went a bit different than I usually work, for example I glued the case onto the leather, instead of the other way around. I wanted to start with the spine, though, to make sure the thinned areas next to the spine stiffener are positioned exactly in the hinges. I let the cover dry like that without the turn in's glued so I can mark and cut the corners later. I want the leather for the corners cut back leaving a distance of around 1,5x the thickness of the boards used. To get that I used the same board I had for the case as a spacer...

drew a line with a ballpen...

and cut the leather so the marked line stayed on the leather left for the corners.

I chipped off the tip of the corners to give more room to the leather and allow for neater corners (if not thinned enough they tend to be bulky and I don't like that, so I make more room for the overlapping leather and shape the corners more precisely). Here I also angled the edge, which was not necessary at all as I found out. So I won't do that again. Then I did the turn in's and cut a piece of cardboard to level out the leather on the inside for weighing down. I wasn't sure whether or not letting the case dry weighed down but without something to fill the hollow would result in an visible edge so I decided better save than sorry. I didn't cut the cardboard too painstakingly precise to fit. It was just a placeholder after all