The studio
Two binders, one long bench, a nipping press that is older than both of us, and a rule against irreversible work wherever a reversible option exists.
How we got here
The studio began as a repair table in the back of a second-hand bookshop. People brought in books that the shop could not sell because they fell apart in the hand, and the repairs slowly became the work. Trade binding came later, when small publishers started asking for short runs that a machine shop would not quote for.
That order matters. We learned on damaged books, so our instinct is conservative: keep the original material, add as little as possible, and make sure the next person can take apart whatever we did.
Two working rules
Reversible first
Wheat starch paste over PVA wherever the join allows it. Paste is weaker, slower and fussier about humidity — and it can be washed out in fifty years by someone who knows more than we do. Strength that cannot be undone is not always a favour to the book.
The book decides the structure
A heavy paper block wants sewing on tapes. A thin pamphlet wants three stations and nothing else. Choosing a structure because it looks impressive is how books end up unable to open, and a book that will not open has lost the argument.
Paper, close up
Fibre direction decides how a repair behaves. It gets checked before any leaf is lined.
At the bench
Most work happens within arm’s reach of the press. The studio is small on purpose.
Equipment worth naming
- A cast-iron nipping press, restored, used for almost everything.
- A board shear that is checked for square every month, because it drifts.
- A finishing stove and a modest set of brass tools, mostly plain lines and dots.
- A lying press with a plough for edge trimming, used sparingly.
- Forty-two kilos of blotting paper, which is less romantic and more useful than the rest.
What we are not
We are not a conservation laboratory. There is no fume hood, no leaf caster and no climate chamber here. For material that needs analysis, washing and deacidification under controlled conditions, the right answer is an institutional conservator, and we will say so rather than improvise.