Recently we updated our book press family for even better user experience. Previously, wing nuts were used for tightening the press. That's a cheap and straightforward solution that allowed us to keep the price low. But now we found a better way!
Well, this needs an explanation. So I will proceed in the clockwise order. I've got the small weights on twelve hours from an old bookbinder's collection back in Russia. They are 285 and 645 grams. Next comes my bike chain...
This holiday season I will produce a limited quantity of bookbinding tools made with wood, plywood, and particleboard (the latter one I use for simple sewing frames.) And the 25% Black Friday discount is applicable to all these tools!
Oftentimes there are discussions on affordability of bookbinding equipment on Facebook and forums. I’ve been preparing my studio for a new season (yeah, I haven’t had any classes since this summer in my workshop), and found the first press that I’ve made for myself more than ten years ago. Or should I call it a vise?
Besides making books and teaching, bookbinding tools are one of my passions. Ten years ago, I’ve made my first presses, sewing frames and wooden folders. That happened almost simultaneously with binding my first book.
Watch a video of David Frazer printing “passing storm” on the old Columbian.
Looks like someone has a lot spare time and that someone is me. Yesterday I’ve spent an hour and a half wrapping handles of my newly made lying press with a rope. I know, I know, usually you can see something like wooden handles. But I don’t have a lathe in my workshop (yet). I had some old handles made with bare steel nuts and I thought: why don’t give that idea a chance?
I’ve took my time before posting something new at iBookBinding.com. There are lots of topics I would like to cover, but April is traditionally a busy month for me and the first days of May I’ve spent organizing my small woodworking workshop. For a long time, I wanted to make different bookbinding tools and now it is becoming a reality.
The first ever books in the world were the Egyptian papyrus rolls, which were composed of several columns of ancient writing scripts. The first of these manuscripts goes back as far as the 25th BC, and until the Christian era, they remained quite popular. However, during this period, the paper or the book industry underwent a transformation, and parchment started replacing the Egyptian papyrus rolls (more on Egyptian Papyrus Rolls on Wikipedia). Writing on parchments was arranged in parallel columns, and vertical lines were used to separate one column from another. This particular pattern gave rise to the idea of cutting the parchments into flat panels, which comprised of either three or four columns. Later on, this form evolved into the books we see today.
