Materials
A small studio cannot stock everything, so what is on the shelf is a set of decisions. Here they are, with the reasoning.
Adhesives
| Adhesive | Used for | Reversible |
|---|---|---|
| Wheat starch paste, cooked weekly | paper repair, endpapers, leather | yes, with water |
| Methyl cellulose | slow work, consolidation, mixing with paste | yes |
| PVA, neutral pH | cloth cases, boxes, spine linings | practically no |
| Animal glue | spine linings on historic structures | with warm water |
| Anything pressure-sensitive | — | never present |
The order of preference is the order of that table. PVA is used where a cloth joint has to survive being pulled off a shelf by one board, and nowhere else.
Paper and board
- Japanese tissue, four weights from 3.5 to 20 g/m², for tear repair and guarding.
- Mould-made text papers for replacement leaves and endpapers.
- Grey and millboard, 1 to 3 mm, cut with the grain running head to tail.
- Blotting paper in quantity, because drying under weight is most of the craft.
Cloth
Book cloth in eleven colours, mostly library buckram plus a few lighter weaves for smaller books. Eleven is not generous, but a reback needs a match, and a shelf of forty half-used rolls is how a small studio runs out of room.
Buckram
Heavy, stiff, honest. For books going back into daily use.
Lighter weaves
For thin books where buckram would out-muscle the block.
Mould-made paper
Replacement leaves and endpapers, chosen by weight and grain, not by whiteness.
Leather
Vegetable-tanned goatskin as the default, calf where a smooth surface is wanted. Bought as whole skins and pared by hand. We do not keep chrome-tanned leather: it looks fine and it is a poor neighbour to paper over decades.
Thread and sewing supports
Unbleached linen thread in three thicknesses, matched to the paper rather than to habit. Linen tapes and hemp cords for supports. Thread should be the part of the structure that fails first, because thread is the easiest part to replace.