Arthur, I would say, can be considered a true craftsman, he knows his tools, his materials, and his limits, and adjusts things rightly to suit the project in proper context. The candid, humble approach to his work is refreshing, with no apologies to anyone, and none needed. This video reinforces my thinking, and gives me confidence to take on projects of my own now, and proceed with common sense. Thanks for sharing.
Wonderful space, nice to see Mrs. Green. :) Wishing you both, all the best with your adventures. Extremely talented and gifted skills. Subscribed, with the bell thing :)
Fantastic presentation along with all the question and answers. This really was, what I had been looking for such a long time. Arthur has renewed the craft properly. My goodness, just fantastic ! Thankyou :)
I'm pleased to hear about how important (or not) neatness was to the binders (and book owners) at the time. I feel the pressure to make something that looks like it was machine-made is quite depressing sometimes. Fascinating talk - thank you very much indeed Arthur and Jill.
Cheers for the comment Paul, glad you found it useful. Neatness is an interesting concept in the history of bookbinding; I don't have all the answers, but it's certainly something i think we need to question. The old trope that pre-industrial craftspeople couldn't make neat work just doesn't make much sense to me.
Thanks for piquing my interest. I, too, would love to see a full tutorial on the technique from start to finish. Perhaps a bit of further research, on my part, is in order.
Hi Darryn, thanks for your comments, I'm glad you found it useful. As usual, standing on the shoulders of giants, just working on what others have shown me; however, I did work out how to do three ply (I've not seen this done before) which is very useful - three is a magic number!
Thank you for the very informative and easy-to-understand video. For an absolute beginner, which paring knife would you recommend to start practicing with?
My single bit of advice would be just have a go, get some leather and practice. All knives are different, try them all see which one you like - just make sure it's sharp!
Thanks for this video. Just learned the way I attempted to do this kind of sewing last time was all kinds of wrong. Also learned it’s called Herringbone.
Hello friend! I think this is similar to the coptic endband used in coptic bindings shown by this lady,i recognise the thread going through the middle of the x : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZQMOWDD5NAA.html Its also similar with the islamic endband as shown by this bloke: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-O7oBS1nKx1Y.html I believe its more similar to the coptic endband,but ive never seen it in a covered binding before! So take my words with a grain of salt
Instead of the music, I think it would have been much more beneficial if you had talked us through what you were using and what you were doing. It all seemed quite interesting, but I had no idea what it meant or what you were doing with the little metal two-prong thingies. I'm quite interested in making my own binding frame so am searching for similar videos to give me an idea of what to buy, what to make, and how to assemble/use it.
What is the liquid you pour from the beaker? I can tell it's not pure water, or am I wrong? It almost seems like a glycerin of some sort. I have a similar procedure that I use, but to see you go through the whole process was very cool. Your video inspired me to make a knife of my own. I have a piece of 1095 steel that should be able to hold an edge at about 18 - 15 degrees, but time will tell if it will hold for more than a skive or two. Great video and absolutely outstanding work.
Hello Arthur, nice work. I am going to buy Vergez Blanchard oblique and paring knives. They usually come ground and honed from the factory. However looking at pictures I am unsure if the bevel is hollow ground or not, see craftntools.com/vergez-blanchard/knifes-and-cutters/oblique-skiving-paring-knife . I assume to get he initial bevel it must be ground on a wheel? Was yours a new knife or an old one and thats why you needed to flatten the back first and regrind the bevel? Out of interest what brand knife is it?
Please do more such vids. It would be good to see the entire process of binding over cords, onto boards of birch or similar, in full leather. To help set the tone, some Gregorian chant from Pluscarden Abbey, or Silos, or some similarly scholarly source, would be helpful as background. Perhaps a series of short videos, one for each step, starting with the gathering of the sheets and ending with the final tooling of the leather? Also a tour of your workshop, with a short discussion of the presses you have available, and of your other tools? (signed) Toomas Karmo (Tõravere hamlet, Nõo commune, Tartumaa County, in south-central Estonia)
Thanks for the positive feedback. One thing to consider, is that you only do the process all the way through once: once the bevel is ground you should really only need to strop, and perhaps the occasional bit of sharpening by hand. That considered you don't really need your own grinding wheel - I borrowed the Tormek used in this video. You can easily sharpen, and maintain a blade for many years with with abrasive films - these are really affordable. You can buy yourself a lapping plate and various grades of films for about £50.
I used a 9mm diameter rare-earth magnet which is very strong. This technique is cheap and simple, but you still need to be carful as it can move. You could always build a jig, or drill a hole in the blade to attach a pivot point, but these options require specialist kit.
Pardon, but what's the diameter of the tin lid you used to draw the circle to follow, during the hand-sharpening. You have done many of us a GREAT service by posting this video. Thank you sir.
Really nice technique and nice editing.Your tools seemed high quality!! What kind of sharpening stones and sandpaper you used (except from the sharpening machine) ?
