Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Old Bible


This is a small (3.5" x 5.5") Bible that is a treasured heirloom. It has been carefully stored for the past 40 years, waiting for something to be done that would allow family members to handle it. There is nothing to indicate just how old the Bible is but it is clearly old. The threads used in sewing the signatures together were so old and brittle that the book block was in a couple of pieces and it didn't take much for more sections to come off. Thus the Bible had to be taken completely apart and re-sewn.


After re-sewing the Bible I then created a new flexible cloth cover using a black cloth with a pebbly grain to it. There was no lettering to be done to this binding since we wanted to reapply as much as possible of the old decoratively stamped cloth cover on top of this new cover.


Here you can see the finished book. The new binding provides the needed strength and stability while maintaining the appearance of the original binding.