Sewn, not glued.
Books taken apart, resewn through the fold and bound in cloth or leather. One at a time, in the order they arrive.
Fourteen weeks is the honest answer.
There is one bench and a queue on it. Nothing is rushed and nothing jumps.
What taking a book apart involves.
Most of the work is undoing what a machine did badly forty years ago.
- 01
Pulling
The case comes off and the old glue is softened and scraped from the spine until the sections are loose and whole.
- 02
Guarding
Torn folds are repaired with Japanese tissue and wheat starch paste, which is reversible in a way glue is not.
- 03
Sewing
Resewn through the fold onto linen tapes. This is the part that decides whether the book opens flat in fifty years.
- 04
Covering
Boards cut, cloth or goatskin pared and turned in, then titled in foil on the spine.
What it costs.
Send a book.
Tell us what it is, what has gone wrong with it and whether anything must be kept. We reply with a price and a place in the queue.