Mock-up test 1

In order to make the most perfect edition ever you need to make a mock-up of what you want it to look like at the end.  I set up an appointment with my thesis advisor, also my binding professor, this last Thursday.  I had taken sheets I considered "bad" and sewn a complete text block and made a case without it being covered to show her.  We had a good discussion about it.  She liked what she saw and made the suggestion that I cover it and leave it at home the majority of next week and then bring it in to school to see what is would do there?

What do you mean, "what it would do?".   Basically, the humidity or dryness of an environment can affect the book and how it behaves.  With using handmade paper, that can cause some issues.  The boards of the case can pull causing bowing up or in (cupping), drying time can be affected.  All kinds of things.  I know my house is more humid than the 5th floor of the library.  But - since all of the paper I have in my thesis is handmade, I don't think I'll have much issue.  Many times the problem stems from using a combination of machine made and handmade.

This morning I made wheat paste, a fun process of watching it boil in the microwave and stirring it down for about 5 minutes.  Then I covered the case with one of the "bad" cover papers.  Tonight I cased it in.  It's drying now.  I can't peek inside.  That would cause bad mojo.

Another important item is that I ordered the board for the cases and hope to receive it by the end of next week. And I sorted all the sheets so in the end I will have an edition of 50.

Here is what the book looks like as it's drying.  It's the thing under the two weights.  Also shows the stacks of each of the signatures for the book.  More later!!

What letterpress looks like in action and end result

I took a short movie of me printing last week.  It's really fascinating.  Just kidding.  It's actually quite slow and boring to watch but for the one printing, it requires full on concentration to make sure that everything is printing well.  The folio you are watching being printed is whats called a gate fold.  I thought it was going to be the most challenging but turned out to print real well.  The photo's are of the finished folio.

The most challenging one turned out to be one side of the second to last folio.  As you might remember, I am printing a copy of each persons response as a Thank You for participating.  I had 1/2 of a response on the base already aligned correctly and decided to go ahead and print the entire thing ( the entire response is printed on 2 different spreads).  I put is on and printed a proof.  Something did not look right.  At first I freaked out that I had printed it entirely wrong but then again upon further inspection, there had been a mistake in my editing.  Now I was faced with the dilemma of having to cut the plate apart with accuracy.  I ended up with 4 slim lines of text that I had to reconfigure to make the sentences from the remainder of the paragraph and then place the last part of the whole text beneath.  This is what it looked like in the bed of the press.  There was lots of breathe holding but I believe it worked out.

Printing is done!!

Just a short post but I wanted everyone to know that I'm done with printing the thesis.  I'll be posting pictures and talking about it more over the weekend.  I'm so excited and relieved this part is done.