TREATMENT EXAMPLES

Bibliographic Information

The whole genuine and complete works of Flavius Josephus, the learned and authentic Jewish historian and celebrated warrior ...;also a continuation of the history of the Jews, from Josephus down to the present time ... embellished with upwards of sixty beautiful engravings, taken from original drawings of Messrs. Metz, Stothard, and Corbould ... and engraved by American
artists. Imprint: New-York : Printed and sold by William Durell ..., 1792 [i.e. 1792-1794]

http://griffin.wsu.edu/search/aJosephus%2C+Flavius/ajosephus+flavius/1,1,26,B/frameset&FF=ajosephus+flavius&18,,26

 

Description/Treatment Brief

Full leather, tight back binding; front board warped and detached; heavy black, and gray dried mold between pages.

I opted for a case binding with hollow tube and new boards; blind tooled lines across spine, according to the original division into panels. The new board edges are built up in thickness to create a frame into which to inset the original cover leather.

All detached pages are washed, treated with Bookkeeper Deacidification Spray, mended and later hinged to the spine. Loose sections are secured using unsupported sewing with link stitches at three paired stations.

 

Materials used

Airplane linen
Brown calf
Davey Board
Kizukishi
Linen thread
Sekishu
wheat starch paste s. adhesives

NARRATIVE

Condition/Description

Cover

Full leather; tight back binding; decorative gold tooling on spine, vertically tooled lines divide spine into 6 panels of equal height; vertically tooled lines are not in relation to the sawn-in cords; front board detached, warped, heat and water damaged; back board still attached by the two most upper cords; leather split all along spine; heavy black, and gray dried mold between pages;

Text block

Sewn on 5 sawn-in cords, laced into pulp boards; middle cord not laced in, but trimmed; heat and water damage around edges; sections beginning at p.63, p.181 loose thread ; p.192 spine cracked all along ; flyleaf and first three pages detached; flyleaf and last pages from page 719 on detached; pages torn and creased; fragment of cord core covered with natural colored thread.

Black, dry mold in between pages; most heavy infestation in first third of the volume.

 

Treatment/Description

Cover

Lifted and removed leather cover to be reapplied later; boards will be discarded; soaked boards in water to float off pastedowns; washed and dried pastedowns; spot tests showed a pH around neutral; treated pages with Bookkeeper Deacidification Spray; ;

I decided to cover only the board edges with new leather since a rebinding in full leather might become necessary later. I wanted to save the original cover leather but was not certain that it would survive another application of paste. In the end the original leather went down well; the results exceeded my expectations .

Cut 1.00 Davey Boards to original board size; applied strips of Bristol Board (.02 thick, cut to length X 5mm wide) along all board edges; cut strips of brown calf 5cm wide, long enough to wrap around the three outer board edges ; pared strips, applied wheat starch paste; centered strip on board edge, turned over edges onto board sides; with Teflon folder defined edges of frame along Bristol Board; Cut spine strip: board length plus 5cm, width of spine plus extra, making sure that there is sufficient width to overlap onto edging strips; pared, pasted, applied, let dry; blind tooled 7 paired lines across spine, according to original panel dimensions; applied spine stiffener of Mohawk Superfine. Turned in leather at head and tail.

Trimmed original board cover leather to size to fit into frame; pasted out and applied; weighted down and let dry sandwiched between blotters.

Lined inside of boards with Mohawk Superfine to counteract outward pull of the boards after insetting the original leather.

Text block

Pasted Kizukishi to spine in order to aid in lifting the original spine; the leather however was too thin and brittle, I was not able save it; in front and back: flyleaves and a few most outer loose or detached pages are removed, washed, dried, mended as necessary then treated with Bookkeeper Deacidification Spray using the fume hood; a hinge is applied to the spine edge of pages; the flange part will be adhered to the spine of the textblock later; flyleaf preparation (s. colored flyleaves), in this case Sekishu is used instead of colored Japanese paper;

Under the fume hood the mold in the textblock is brushed out with a dry brush, page by page; the center of loose sections is marked with a strip of paper; applied thick poultice from wheat starch paste to soften and clean the spine; while still moist, re-positioned loose sections and formed spine; the textblock is allowed to dry under a weight ; applied gelatin to the spine to consolidate the textblock before sewing; secured marked sections with unsupported sewing ; applied flanges of prepared individual leaves and flyleaves to back of spine; to protect the weak folds before sewing endbands, applied 1st lining (s. spine linings)

Sewed end bands: linen thread over cord core; thread anchored every 8 to10mm ; 2nd lining linen: lined anchoring threads including back of end bands with Okawara; 3rd lining Okawara ; applied hollow tube, one on two off; cased in by gluing the spine stiffener to the hollow tube; first applied linen hinge to boards, then applied free hinges of flyleaves; ; reapplied original pastedowns;
Mounted spine label: laser printed on solid dyed Japanese paper; applied with paste.