holy shit it's a chance press book by CAROL ES

[Rekrab]

Thanks, Jordan. I'll study that. I'm a self-taught binder and will steal any techniques I can.

That looks like a complex binding to pull off well.

A couple of things caught my attention, although I just skimmed it for now. "Scoring with a dull knife" sounds risky. Do you ever accidental get a cut in the cloth that way? Secondly, you're using dry adhesive instead of PVA glue. I think Bill Roberts uses dry adhesive for a lot of his bindings. What I've wondered about that (and this is no doubt just my endless paranoia at work) has there been any study on how that holds up over time? What would worry me is will it lose it's adhesion years from now, and the binding fall apart? Will it age badly (discoloring, warping, etc.) I've used PVA since it was invented and it stays the same seemingly forever. Not to disparage dry adhesive -- just wondering how stable it is. I could Google that and find out in a minute, so pardon me if that's not an issue. Thanks for sharing your details.

 

[bospress.net]

Hi David.
The dry adhesive that I use is acid free and permanent. I have heard of no time tests, although 3M came out with it years ago and i have heard of no problems. If it ever did fail, it would be a catastrophe, of course, and i would sue the shit out of the manufacturer as would all of the scrapbookers that use it. I wish that there was a way to test it, but time is the only test. That being said, it bonds like the dickens and I can see no reason why it would change over time.

Bill

 

[Rekrab]

Thanks for the info, Bill. I realize it's an idiot move on my part, asking a question that Google can answer in a minute, but this way I have your expert testimony.

It would indeed be a catastrophe if the dry adhesive suddenly failed after many years. I think about stuff like this because I deal with old books a lot and the ways they fall apart interest me. With the majority of 19th Century leatherbound books, the main problem is that binders pared the leather too thin, plus the way the leather was tanned made it dry out and disintegrate over time (called red rot). The result is that most leather bound books from that time have cracked joints, loose covers, loose or missing spines. Binders did beautiful work in those days, fine gold tooling on fine leathers, but much of it is now in ruins. They could have avoided this, had they but known that their methods weren't safe for the long term. On the other hand, they're all dead and so are the readers who originally bought the books, so it's not their problem, it's ours.

A mistake I made in the 70s - 80s was using rubber cement to glue down labels/cover art on my publications. It dried out, turned the paper brown, and the labels came loose. Bad choice, but I had no clue.

Anyway, no reason to think the dry adhesive isn't okay.

 

[bospress.net]

Rubber cement likely has a very high acidity. That being said, it is used to attach laminate tops to particle board and works very well for that. Laminate is made out of pressed paper (yep your laminate countertops are made of paper, not plastic). and once it is bonded, if bonded well, it will never come up. Still, it probably discolors below the surface, and if the laminate was super think, it may burn through with time...

Bill

 

[jordan]

when you're scoring with the dull knife, you're really only scoring the backing paper on the adhesive - but you do need to experiment a few times on some scrap sheets to get the pressure right, or you will cut through to the cloth. for some of the trimming required, you need a very sharp knife too, so i keep a sharp one and a dull one handy while i'm working.

 

[LickTheStar]

It would indeed be a catastrophe if the dry adhesive suddenly failed after many years. I think about stuff like this because I deal with old books a lot and the ways they fall apart interest me. With the majority of 19th Century leatherbound books, the main problem is that binders pared the leather too thin, plus the way the leather was tanned made it dry out and disintegrate over time (called red rot). The result is that most leather bound books from that time have cracked joints, loose covers, loose or missing spines. Binders did beautiful work in those days, fine gold tooling on fine leathers, but much of it is now in ruins. They could have avoided this, had they but known that their methods weren't safe for the long term.

"Books fall apart; the binding cannot hold
mere anarchy is loosed up on the world"

or something like that...

 

[Rekrab]

Of course, it's natural for books to wear out and fall apart. I kind of like that. But if the life of the book gets prematurely shortened by bad materials, that seems like a shame.

I think small press publishers on average probably care more about using good materials than do mainstream publishers. There have been some real crap bindings used by big publishers. In the 70s, there were really bad glued bindings on some hardcovers that cracked the first time you opened the book and after one reading, clumps of pages fell out. That went on for quite a while until something made the publishers give a damn. Maybe sales fell off?

 

[bospress.net]

Michael Shaara's Killer Angels (The book that they based the movie GETTYSBURG on) is never found in very good condition because of poor quality binding and production. That book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975, so finding a truly mint copy is super rare.

Bill

 

[Rekrab]

What I do when I have one of those crappy 1970s hardbacks with loose pages is I take it out of the case binding, scrape off the bad glue, straighten out the pages as well as I can, and then reglue the spine and when that's dry, glue the text block back into the covers. It'll never be mint, but works pretty well.

By the way, hope no one thought I was dissing the materials/methods used by BOSP or Chance Press -- not at all. I'm sure they've both given far more thought to quality than I have in any of my publications.

 

[jordan]

no worries - we also use a lot of scrapbooking tape (incredibly strong dual-sided tape), and i've often worried what would happen if it dried out and stopped working. but it's acid free and supposedly permanent, so hopefully that won't happen. if it did, then "a common thread" would be the only chance press book that wouldn't fall apart.

 

[mjp]

You guys need to learn a lesson from big manufacturers: planned obsolescence.

You want the books to fall apart. Then you do a brisk trade in repair. Or come up with a better name...book renewal or something.

That way you have one customer and multiple payments per title.

Get with it, man.

 

[Hosh]

I agree. It seems the key to longevity is a shitty product that constantly must be replaced; the key to wealth is a meaningless "money back guarantee (as we'll close up shop on whatever gimcrack we've been shilling before the complaints can come in); and the key to happiness is LOW EXPECTATIONS!

BoSP & Chance Press--with your gorgeous materials and artisan approach--you're working yourselves right out of a job!

 

[Rekrab]

If the scrapbooking tape does fail someday, it'll turn out to be because the manufacturer saved 15 cents per thousand units on some ingredient of the adhesive. You'd rather have paid that extra 15 cents for a tape that wouldn't fail, but they never asked you -- they just went with the cheaper ingredient. Isn't that how capitalism works?

 

[esart]

i wonder how long has the 3m adhesive been existing so far? but fyi, i'm not worried. i trust j&j and bill totally.

 

[Rekrab]

Hey, many thanks to the generous person who mailed me a free copy of the little paperbound copy of Carol's sketches. Very cool little book. I liked the words as well as the drawings. There was no note, and the name on the return address was just initials. I haven't yet figured out who sent this, being less than clever. But thanks, whoever you are. Much appreciated.

 

[Rekrab]

Duh...I figured it out. Thanks!

 

[bospress.net]

i got mine today. Damn they are GREAT!

Great job to all involved. Really great.

Bill

 

[jordan]

i was going to include a thing about how the convertible binding works (you either fold the back cover flap on the outer fold to keep the dustjacket back there, or you fold it on the inner flap and put the dustjacket on the book), but i got lazy. i'll post something to the blog at some point. glad you like them!

 

[jordan]

just posted a blog entry with a bunch of pics of the (mostly) finished product. it's pretty cool.......

 

[mjp]

That looks tastier than a cool blueberry smoothie on a hot summer porch.

 

[chronic]

I got to see a copy when Jordan and Justine were kind enough to put me up for a night and give me a tour of the Chance Press manufacturing facilities on the trip north. The photos don't entirely do them justice... a beautiful production.

 

[esart]

i feel like i won the lottery.

 

[jordan]

OH DO YOU?

last round of pictures just went up online here. only thing missing now is the mylar dustjacket, which doesn't photograph well anyway. i have to say... i'm proud of what justine and i have done here. not really the time to pat myself on the back, but carol's art pushed us to a level i didn't think we would reach when we started chance press, and we've just been trying and trying and trying for months to come up with a way to do it justice, and i really feel like we succeeded. especially with the deluxe edition (which is really just an edition of the main book plus a separate portfolio), which came together fairly quickly but is really the icing on the cake.

 

[Stavrogin]

I don't use the word lovely in every day parlance but seems the right word here. I do believe I'll have to take one of these off your hands if you don't mind.

 

[bospress.net]

yes, fucking AMAZING!

bill

 

[mjp]

I suppose I'm biased, but you two really have outdone yourselves, and the pictures on your site are amazing. This has to rank up among the most interesting artist's books I've ever seen. Chance Press dynamite dropped on an unsuspecting world.

 

[Hosh]

Wow x infinity = that book. That is really something else.

 

[justine]

that paper is totally bizarre - in person, it really looks like a cloudy sky, the colours are just right.

also: jordan keeps adding my name in because he is a perfect gentleman, but really this is his baby and i have just provided a few bits of advice and some manual labour.

 

[hoochmonkey9]

jesus, that's incredible! beautiful job.

 

[mjp]

I like [...] Batman.

I think that's an upside down Jesus...but the two characters do share many common traits.