Filed under: Art, Book Conservation | Tags: 1454, 1470, art, blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, jim downey, Legacy Bookbindery
This is post 1,454 for this blog.
There’s general agreement that the first copies of the Gutenberg Bible were finished in 1454 or 1455.
So I thought I would revisit progress on my conservation work on the 1470/71 text.
Last time, I had finished resewing the book using a ‘conservation chainstitch’. Historically, the book would have been sewn onto cords, but given the way I had to re-join all the pages into sections, I decided to use a sewing structure which is more gentle on the folios. When the time comes to make the leather cover, I’ll position fake cords (the ‘bands’ you see on old leather-bound books).
With the sewing done, first I applied a light coat of adhesive to the spine and then a strip of thin handmade paper. I ‘shaped’ the spine a bit to have a slight curve and allowed it to dry overnight. The next day I put the book into a ‘finishing press’, with the spine sticking up:
In the finishing press.
See how the sides of the press drop away from the book? This allows you to use a ‘backing hammer’ to lightly shape the spine more completely with slight glancing blows, molding the curved shape more completely. This is done to help accommodate the thickness of the sewing thread in each section, and gives the book that very characteristic rounded-spine shape we’re used to on leather-bound books.
Next, I made some endbands (head & tail bands), using a bit of maroon goatskin shaped over a heavy cord. Sewing on nice head & tail bands would most likely been done historically, but it is a bit time-consuming, and again puts stress on the folios of the book. This sort of added-on endband is common now, and they’re just applied with adhesive so they can be easily removed without damage to the folios if/when the book needs conservation treatment in the future.
Endband
The endbands serve a couple of different purposes. One, they provide support for the part of the leather cover which spans the spine from front to rear board. This helps to stop that portion of the leather cover from either being mushed down or stressed too much from people using it to pull a book off a shelf. But it also gives a nice ‘finish’ to the sections, in case there were any slight irregularities in positioning during the sewing.
Endband, detail.
Once the endbands are positioned, I apply a section of light, fairly open-weave cloth which will function as a hinge to help mount the text block to the covers. Then another strip of slightly thicker paper goes on the whole spine, from endband to endband, making a sandwich which will help support everything.
Ready to cover.
And poof – the book is now ready for a cover.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Apollo program, General Musings, NASA, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Society, Space, Violence | Tags: Apollo 11, blogging, grief, jim downey, joy, loss, Michael Collins, NASA, space
We all know grief. The empty place at the holiday table. The hole in the heart. The missing man. Someone who is gone too soon.
In many ways, absence defines us.
But sometimes, those stars which have vanished from the firmament aren’t gone, they’re just removed from our limited sight. They’re not visible in the day, after all.*
And sometimes, the absence defines something else, bringing perspective, even joy:
“I feel this powerfully — not as fear or loneliness — but as awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation. I like the feeling. Outside my window I can see stars — and that is all. Where I know the moon to be, there is simply a black void, the moon’s presence is defined solely by the absence of stars.”
Jim Downey
Filed under: Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, tech | Tags: blogging, CNN, Communion of Dreams, Hyperstealth, jim downey, News, predictions, science, Science Fiction, stealth, technology, video
This is starting to get some attention:
A Canadian company called Hyperstealth is reporting that it has developed Quantum Stealth, a material that renders the target “completely invisible by bending light waves around the target.” If the mock-up photos are to be believed, Quantum Stealth basically works like Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak.
Since 2002, Hyperstealth has been in the business of designing camouflage patterns for military uniforms, vehicles, and installations. In 2010, at the International Camouflage Symposium, Hyperstealth’s CEO Guy Cramer demonstrated SmartCamo — a material that could reportedly adjust its camouflage markings to match its surroundings. We say “reportedly” because Cramer apparently published a video demonstration of SmartCamo, but then US military intervened and asked him to take it down. Presumably Quantum Stealth is a follow-up from SmartCamo.
Again, for security reasons, Cramer is saying very little about Quantum Stealth. All of the pictures that you see here, and on Hyperstealth’s site, are mock-ups, because “for security issues we can not show the actual technology.” Cramer says that both the US and Canadian military have seen Quantum Stealth in action, and that they’ve also confirmed that the material obscures the target from infrared (thermal) imaging. Below, you can see Cramer talking to CNN’s Pentagon correspondent about Quantum Stealth.
In addition to the cited CNN video, there’s another news item from a paper which seems to be local to the company. In that article Cramer has more to say:
“That’s the thing that surprises most of the people at these meetings, that it works as well as we’re showing there. It only takes a few seconds for someone in these meetings to verify, yeah it obviously works for the visual spectrum.”
The invisibility cloak also conceals ultra-violet and infra-red heat rays.
“It actually masks the entire thermal signature from the user.”
Cramer added, “We’ve proven it, but I’m not about to show it because there’s no need to show you what works because the only people who need to see this are the people we have shown.”
Uh-huh. He has a magic, er, make that “quantum technology” cloak, but doesn’t want to show anyone outside of the military, even though he’s perfectly happy to discuss how great it is.
Is my skepticism showing? Or has that been masked by quantum effects?
OK, so he’s shown it to the military. Wouldn’t just about any special forces organization in the world literally kill for such technology? Here’s what one such officer said, again from the Maple Ridge News article:
Maj. Doug MacNair, with Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, confirmed that Cramer made a presentation to special operations within the last few years.
But there’s been no decision to follow through.
“We didn’t pursue it further, at least not at this time anyway.
“It wasn’t something we were interested in pursuing at the time. It doesn’t mean we wouldn’t in the future, necessarily. “We’re aware of the company, we have the information. But we don’t have a contract in place at the time.”
Maybe Mr. Cramer is asking too much money for his technology. Or perhaps this is some kind of ruse on the part of the military, to make it seem like the technology ain’t that big a deal. Because the clever thing to do is to promote this all over the web, and then deny that it is something that any government would want. That way no one will pay attention to it. Right?
Er, right.
Don’t get me wrong — I think such technology is possible, and I use something very like it in Communion of Dreams. This is from Chapter 18:
Jon walked to the edge of the pool. He heard a noise behind him, turned slowly to look at it.
From beside a large bush a pile of boulders shifted. The air shimmied, light danced, and a crouching figure emerged, covered in a fabric drape that tried to keep up with the changing surroundings. One hand pulled the drape to the side. Another was holding a very
large sidearm.
But that’s 40 years in the future. I don’t think that this is a tech which has come to be real quite so soon.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Connections, General Musings, Society, Tolkien | Tags: blogging, jim downey, JRR Tollkien, Orcs
This was this morning:
Taken from the same vantage point a bit after Noon:
Damned orcs.
Jim Downey
OK, obviously not orcs. Bobcat with a giant rotating cheese-grater type thing. And I’m not annoyed at all — this is the parcel of land next to us (yeah, *that* one), which now belongs to friends. They’re clearing out some of the massive islands of underbrush in preparation for building on the property next year. It needed to be done eventually, but was prompted now by a couple of instances of people hiding stolen vehicles or using those islands as homeless camps. Good to have people who care about what happens to the land next to us.
Filed under: Book Conservation, Connections, Feedback, NYT, Predictions, Preparedness, Science Fiction, tech, Writing stuff | Tags: 1470, blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, jim downey, Science Fiction, Silas House, technology, writing
There is truth in this:
The No. 1 question I get at readings is: “How many hours a day do you write?” I used to stumble on this question. I don’t write every day, but when I first started going on book tours I was afraid I’d be revealed as a true fraud if I admitted that. Sometimes I write for 20 minutes. Other times I don’t stop writing for six hours, falling over at the end like an emotional, wrung-out mess, simultaneously exhausted and exhilarated. Sometimes I go months without putting a word on the page.
One night, however, I was asked that question and the right answer just popped out, unknown to me before it found solidity on the air: “I write every waking minute,” I said. I meant, of course, that I am always writing in my head.
I’m lucky.
OK, actually I’m very lucky, because I am lucky in many ways. But what I am thinking of right now is that my chosen profession allows me time to think — to write in my head, as it were.
To write in my head as I preserve the words of others. The written words. Specifically, the *printed* words.
Like this:
Joined sheets.
That’s the next step from my last report on the 1470 text. I got all the individual sheets attached, creating “sections” of the book. Or, I should say, re-creating the sections which once were.
Sections “punched” to create sewing stations – where the sewing thread will join them one to the other. And the start of that sewing process.
Then moving on, linking not just words, not just pages, but whole passages, whole section, one to the other:
Linking, one to the next.
What you see there is called a “chain stitch”. A curious term, implying not just links, but connections, even slavery.
Can words be enslaved?
Clean edges. Clean definitions.
And this shows — proves — that my technique works. All the sections line up properly. Almost perfectly.
And so the pages are transformed, from individual pages, into a book.
Like writing.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Apollo program, Brave New World, Failure, General Musings, Government, Man Conquers Space, NASA, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Space, tech, Violence | Tags: Apollo, blogging, Golden Spike, jim downey, Moon, NASA, Pearl Harbor, predictions, science, Science Fiction, space, technology
“Pearl Harbor” was 71 years ago today.
The launch of Apollo 17 was 40 years ago today.
That means that there was less time between the start of WWII (well, our involvement in it) and the end of humankind’s time on the Moon than there is between now and when Apollo 17 left the Taurus-Littrow valley.
That don’t seem right.
Yeah, sure, there’s a company saying that they want to send commercial flights back to the Moon.
Somehow, I doubt that it’s quite that easy.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Humor, NASA, Science, Space, tech | Tags: blogging, GRAIL, humor, jim downey, Moon, NASA, science, space, technology, video
I love the sense of humor:
GRAIL’s Gravity Tour of the Moon
This movie shows the variations in the lunar gravity field as measured by NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) during the primary mapping mission from March to May 2012. Very precise microwave measurements between two spacecraft, named Ebb and Flow, were used to map gravity with high precision and high spatial resolution.
There’s more, including images and vid, at the link.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Book Conservation, Music, U of Iowa Ctr for the Book, YouTube | Tags: blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, jim downey, Kozo, music, Reemay, The Beatles
Just a quick follow-up to my post about the incunable legal text.
After spending most of last week cleaning up the edges of the sheets, I’ve been working on re-joining the folios. The trick with this is to make sure all the pages wind up being the same size when they’re folded and ready to be sewn — because I don’t want to trim the text block to get a clean fore-edge.
The solution is to make up a simple jig on my workbench:
Lines drawn on the benchtop, some bookboard mounted to the edge. This will help me keep everything the right size and aligned correctly.
Down the center is some Reemay polyester fabric, which will not adhere to the Kozo repair strips.
The book originally had sections of four folios (folded sheets) per section. I can tell this because of the printing conventions of the time, which had a small counter at the bottom of each page indicating where it went in the book. Very handy. For my work, I only need to rejoin the innermost pair of sheets from each section — then the other sheets will be attached to that new center folio. This will keep everything positioned correctly, and make for a strong sewing structure.
Here’s a pic showing the positioning of a pair of sheets:
Notice the gap in the center.
And here’s one with a shot of the Kozo repair strip applied. It’s a heavyweight Kozo (Japanese ‘mulberry’ paper), with a strong wheatpaste applied. Makes a great repair, but is completely reversible with a little water if anyone needs to re-do my repairs later. See:
The next step is to iron the strip down with a small tacking iron on moderate heat. This is done with another layer of Reemay between the iron and the Kozo. This gives a clean, flat edge to mount the other sheets.
Which will be my next step.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Book Conservation, Marketing, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction | Tags: art, blogging, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, humor, jim downey, Kickstarter, predictions, promotion, Science Fiction
A couple weeks ago, I wrote this:
If I wanted to, I could actually bind the book so as to read ‘backwards’ like a Hebrew Bible, though the page numbers are all in the wrong location for that.
I must admit, I’m tempted, just for giggles.
And as I posted yesterday, I gave in to the temptation. Yup, I made a ‘backwards book’, one which has the spine on the right side, and in which you turn the pages from left to right. And I’m going to make a few more.
Why? Well, for the fun of it, mostly. But also because when things like this happen, I’ve learned to roll with it. It’s like a little surprise, something special the universe gives you — serendipitous art.
And for some people, such things are quite collectible. Think of philately or numismatics, where errors of one sort or another make for highly-valued stamps and coins.
Errors are part of the handmade process. In this case, the error wasn’t mine, but came from the printer. Whoever set up the print run managed to load the pages backwards, and in the process opened an unexpected door.
Now, this isn’t something that appeals to a lot of people. So I’m only going to make 15 of these books — thirteen ‘lettered’ copies (A – M), and two artist’s/author’s proofs, all covered in book cloth as shown. Those who have opted to get one of the “archive” sets will have it included in the set at no additional charge as long as the copies last. Others may opt to buy a single copy for $150.00. But there are only 13 copies, and of those four are already reserved. Meaning that there are only nine remaining, and are first-come, first served.
So, there ya go.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What follows is a little photo-essay showing the process by which I bound the first book (and will bind the rest). This will also be the same process for binding the ‘normal’ hardcover cloth edition.
Sheets gathered into sections, then folded.
Sections punched for sewing.
Starting the sewing onto linen tapes.
Sewing complete.
Text block trimmed, ready for adhesive & spine liners.
Gluing up the text block.
Checking fit of the boards.
Making the cloth-bound case (hardcover).
Case done, checking fit with text block.
Cover sheet next to case.
Me cutting the cover sheet to size.
Cutting the cover sheet – this is how it would normally be laid out for a conventional book.
Re-arranging the cover for this ‘backwards’ book.
Cover completed.
It’s a backwards book!
Filed under: Art, Book Conservation, Marketing, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction | Tags: art, blogging, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, jim downey, Science Fiction
Remember how I said that I was “Tempted”?
Well, have a sneak peek at what I just finished:
It’s a backwards book!
I’ll have a full post, along with a lot of images of making the book, up later today or tomorrow.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 