This little book needed quite a bit of work to make it functional again. The original spine was completely missing, so the most immediate problem needing attention was the blue cloth that someone glued directly onto the sewing and folds of the gatherings.
The adhesive used was extremely hard and brittle and was pulling the paper of the book cover apart. I put a layer of Methylcellulose on the cloth, being careful not to get it on the paper. I let it sit long enough to soften the cloth, but not humidify the paper underneath. Paper started coming up with the cloth anyway, because of the strength of the adhesive, so I applied a little water (with a small brush) between the board and cloth to separate them.
Once the cloth was out of the way, it was clear that re-sewing was needed. I also needed to guard the outer folio of each gathering. I did this using re-moistenable tissue I made with wheat starch paste and Methylcellulose as the adhesive. The picture above is of the production -line I developed to minimize the time to do the guarding.
The original sewing was two-up over cords. I sewed over cords, but decided to sew all along, instead of two-up, for a more consolidated textblock. I sewed the kettle stitches over cords as well for added textblock strength, and to make a stronger board attachment.
Here is a close-up of the kettle stitches over cords.
I toned aerocotton to replace the cloth I’d removed, and then attached to boards and added a new hollow.
I then put on the new cloth and shaped the endcaps.
One of the paste-downs was missing a piece, so I decided to infill it by lifting the paste-down and repairing the inner hinge from underneath.
There is a close-up of the final result.
The last thing to be done was to build up the front board corners, because the corners of the textblock were exposed. This was done with a combination of hemp cord and wheat starch paste. (The bottom corner is shown above.)
Once the board was the thickness I wanted, I shaped it and covered it in toned Japanese paper.
The finished result!