Flat-Back Case Binding

As I mentioned in my blog post about Coptic bookbinding, I took the Bookbinding Core Certificate Program at the San Francisco Center for the Book in April, 2015. Our second workshop was on Flat-back case binding, which incorporated some of the things we had learned in the Coptic binding workshop (composing and trimming signatures, adhering papers to the bookboards, preparing thread for sewing), and got us ready for the more advanced workshops to come. We discussed paper grain even more in depth this week, which was a reoccurring topic through all the workshops.

To put it simply, in this workshop we sewed a text block, constructed a case, then glued the two together. To put it more in depth, the sewing of the text block introduced the guillotine, and we learned the french stitch to sew the text block, as well as how to back the text block. We did not use special paper for the end sheets in this one, just the 70 lb. mohawk superfine vellum opaque paper that we used for all the text blocks. The case construction was challenging and fun because we learned how to calculate the dimensions and necessary overlap for the book boards, spine construction, and cloth and paper covering (in this case a 1/2 binding style, as the spine fabric carried a short distance onto the boards, and we used the spine fabric to make corners). We actually went to the length of drawing out a sort of "blue print" for the dimensions which was time consuming but very useful for future endeavors.

The workshop also presented the distinct pleasure of selecting our materials from a bright variety for the casing cover -- I chose a light brown japanese silk material with a slightly yellow metallic undertone for the spine and corners, and a marbled paper for the rest of the book boards. Additionally, we selected our endbands and glued them on -- we did not begin to learn about sewing headbands and tailbands until week 3. As it turns out, this was historically accurate, as I will discuss below, in addition to being a practical consideration.

Once the text block and case had been fully constructed, the last nerve-wracking step was gluing the text block into the case. Lots of my classmates were stressing about this. The trick is to slowly let down the cover after applying the adhesive to the end sheet -- too fast and it tends to wrinkle. I managed this step quite well, and I believe it is because of my experience repairing so many large reference books at my work -- one of the most common problems is the text block sagging out of the case of commercially bound books, and I had fixed quite a few of those back when I did the reference collection evaluation and mending project.

I ended up leaving my book in the nipping press for the week, and picked it up the following week when I came for the Limp Paper Binding workshop. It turned out beautifully! I am very pleased with the evenness it displays and am very fond of it.

One side of my flat-back case binding

Detail of the tail and tailband... this was a premade tailband 

Detail of the text block and corners. We used the guillotine to trim the fore-edge for a smooth appearance and feeling

Glued-in endsheet... pretty dang smooth! 

Center of one signature. The visible thread is where the needle entered and exited the six sewing stations, while the two empty spots indicate the location of the two tapes I sewed around. 

The center of this signature shows that I should have pulled the thread more taut and boned down better! 

This is the other side of the binding... The paper and fabric is very handsome if I do say so myself :)

In Bookbinding and the conservation of books, Roberts and Etherington define flat back case binding as, "A simple type of (library) binding which has a flat spine and is cased or has a one-piece covering. This type of binding is suitable for typescript, some pamphlets, and adhesive-bound paperbacks" (1982, p. 103). Bookbinding and the conservation of books also provides a definition for flat back binding, which differentiates it from a spine that has been rounded, and points out that this type of binding tends to become concave (Roberts and Etherington, 1982, p. 103). In thinking about these two definition when considering preservation, clearly a rounded spine is more sturdy, and will resist the damages of use much better. Furthermore, when considering the last workshop I did at the San Francisco Center for the Book in the Bookbinding Core Certificate Program, the round back hard case binding, a rounded and backed spine that utilizes the lacing-in technique (boards attached to the sewing cords) makes a much more durable book. Not only does the rounded spine hold up better against use, but the lacing-in technique fortifies the joints so they do not have to rely on the glued endsheets alone.

I think, though, that the definitions presented in Bookbinding and the conservation of books takes the term much more seriously, limiting black back case bindings to unsewn bindings (machine editions of case bindings are often not sewn), while the workshop functioned on a tiered basis and emphasized the techniques of hand bindings, introducing us to more detailed bindings as the weeks went by. Hence, in the flat back case binding workshop, we sewed, glued, and backed the textblock, but we didn't round it nor lace-in the boards.

In any case, an emphasis of this kind of binding is that "the book is prepared in one series of steps, and the case--or cover--is made separately" (Young, 1995, p. 6), which I discussed above. In Greenfield's ABC of bookbinding, "flat spine" bindings were "popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries" (1998, p. 27), so the efficiency of not having to lace-in the boards or round the back was a testament to both innovation in time saving and cost savings, as is seen in many styles of bookbinding post the invention of the printing press and the spread of personal possession of bound books. Indeed, in his essay, "Onward and downward: How binders coped with the printing press before 1800," Nicholas Pickwoad says the earliest appearance of the case-bound book may be Erasmus's Adagiorum epitome, published in Amsterdam by Elzevier in 1650 -- during the wonderful Dutch golden age, of course (1994, p. 92). However, Pickwoad goes on to say that the case binding structure, which "allowed effective production line work for the first time, in that the covers of the books could be manufactured independently of and at the same time as the sewing of the textblocks, to be united, by adhesive only, at the final stage of the binding process," was very popular in Germany as early as 1725 and is the best example of the 19th Century industrialization of the binding trade (1994, p. 91). The flat-back case binding, by cutting out steps that became costly and burdensome with the rise in printed matter, was an important step in moving toward mechanization of library bindings, as well as a discovery of a reliable form of hand binding.

References

Greenfield, J. (1998). ABC of bookbinding: a unique glossary with over 700 illustrations for collectors & librarians. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press; New York, NY: Lyons Press.

Pickwoad, N. (1994). Onward and downward: How binders coped with the printing press before 1800. In R. Myers & M. Harris (Eds.), A Millennium of the Book: Production, design, & illustration in manuscript & print, 900-1900. Winchester, U.K.: St. Paul's Bibliographies; New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press.

Roberts, M., & Etherington, D. (1982). Bookbinding and the conservation of books : a dictionary of descriptive terminology. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress.

Young, L. (1995). Bookbinding & conservation by hand: a working guide. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press.