Volume 24, Number 6
Apr 2001

Board Reattachment

This is a technique I have been using at Stanford for the past 2 years to reattach the boards of leather covered tightbacked books, sewn on raised bands. It involves lifting the spine leather, board leather and pastedowns at the head and tail only.

The steps are as follows:

• At the head and tail spine panels, make a cut through the leather near the base of the band, going from shoulder to shoulder.
• Lift the spine panels.
• Pastewash the spine to remove any deteriorated spine linings and adhesive.
• Paste a light Japanese paper lining on the spine.
• When the Japanese paper lining is dry, secure loose or broken endbands with thread.
• Adhere with PVA an airplane linen or cotton lining. The cloth should be cut on the bias and extend 1/2 to 1 inch beyond the shoulders, and go from near the base of the band to the end of the spine. If the spine has endbands, extend the cloth onto the endbands to help anchor them a little more strongly to the textblock. It is important to work the PVA well into the cloth, as the strength of this mend depends in part upon a strong bond between the cloth and the text spine. The cloth can be dampened slightly during boning to achieve greater adhesion.
• Determine now if further spine linings are needed to support the spine when the book is opened.
• Lift the leather and pastedowns of the boards at the head and tail.
• Cut the extensions of the linen lining in half, and fray out the ed

  

• Place the boards in position on the book. Using PVA, adhere the outer half of the extensions to the boards, going underneath the lifted leather. Allow to dry.
• Open the boards and glue (PVA) the inner half of the extensions to the boards, going underneath the lifted pastedowns. When dry, readhere the pastedowns.
• Before gluing down the lifted leather, adhere a wet-torn strip of Japanese paper over the linen showing in the joint. I usually use a heavyweight Uda. This strip should begin slightly underneath the lifted board leather and extend a little way onto the spine. This will hide the weave of the linen and add strength to the joint. Color the Japanese paper to match the leather with artist's acrylics mixed in a little methyl cellulose. Mixing the acrylics in methyl cellulose slows down their quick drying time and makes their application easier.
• Readhere the lifted board leather and spine panels.
• Open the boards and paste a strip of suitable weight Japanese paper in the hinge area, running from head to tail and from the base of the shoulder to the top of the board. This adds a little to the strength of the attachment, and gives a neater appearance to the inside of the covers. The narrow line of paper that shows in the joint when the boards are closed can be colored with the acrylic paint/methyl cellulose mixture to match the leather.
• If the joint edges of the spine panels at the head and tail are visually distracting, a narrow strip of Japanese paper can be adhered just over the edges and then colored to match the leather.

I've successfully used this method of board reattachment on large (quarto) and small books, with a few variations depending upon the weight and size of the book. While this technique doesn't entirely replace leather rebacking in my conservation work, I'm finding that I use it more often.

(David Brock is a Rare Book Conservator at Stanford University.)