Below is a brief listing of the various types of treatment actions I’ve performed over the course of my career:
Aqueous Treatments
- Water-only baths utilizing hollytex, screen, or rayon papers for support; individual or multiple folios per support dependent upon penetration of water and movement of degradants
- Solvent baths utilizing ethanol or isopropyl alcohol
- ethanol baths are intended to begin moisture penetration into an object, break the surface tension of the water in later baths, or begin stain reduction process
- isopropyl alcohol baths are intended to begin the mold remediation process and are not followed by water baths
- Float washing and slant board washing for items with hydrophobic media or extreme fragility
- Various combinations of the above dependent upon the overall needs of the textblock
- Block washing
Iron Gall Ink Treatments
- Calcium phytate
Deacidification
- Aqueous
- calcium hydroxide
- calcium bicarbonate
- Non-aqueous: BookKeeper®
Tape Removal/Stain Reduction
- Removal of carrier utilizing heat or organic solvents
- Removal of adhesive manually or via organic solvents
- Reduction of staining/adhesive cross linking via organic solvent baths or suction platen/wedge
- Removal of Barrow lamination utilizing organic solvents
Mending
- Heat-set tissue—toned and untoned, always applied with heat
- Japanese tissue/paper
- varying weights, colors, and fibers in whatever combination of layers best suited to the object being mended
- wheat or rice starch paste determined by the paper’s reaction to moisture
- re-moistenable tissue utilizing Klucel G or methyl cellulose
- drying under pressure or with heat dependent upon the stiffness of the paper and its strength
Fixing and/or Consolidating Inks
- B-72 in toluene or acetone
- Cyclododecane
- Carrageen
- Funori
- Cationic/Anionic fixatives
Lining
- Wheat starch paste
- Various tissue weights and colors
- Single piece or multi-piece composite object
Sewing
Wide variety of sewing structures and abbreviations both supported and unsupported
Forwarding
- Release layer
- Extended linings using stretch linen, Irish linen, Japanese paper, or Iowa Case Paper to create comb linings, patch linings, or a full lining on both flat spines and raised bands
- Abbreviated and full hollow typically created off the spine with Japanese paper, stretch linen, or western paper
- Endbands
- English primary in solid or two colors of silk or linen thread
- German primary in solid or two tones of silk or linen thread
- French in any variety of colors of silk thread
- Rounding and backing
Binding
- Board thickness and shaping as appropriate to period
- Case binding or in boards
- board attachment utilizing sewing structure, panel linings, or full linen linings
- covering material being cloth, paper, leather, alum-tawed, or vellum
- ¼ and ½ bindings in cloth, paper, marbled paper, and leather
Finishing
- Tooling—design and execution of period appropriate 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th century patterns on leather and alum-tawed; all designs researched for authenticity prior to tooling
- Titling—stamping directly on spine or on paper or leather labels with a variety of foil colors
Repairs
- Reback spines in cloth, double laminate Japanese paper, Japanese paper/Irish linen laminate, leather, and alum-tawed; for ½ and ¼ leather bindings, entire spine and/or corners replaced as well with the new leather meeting the marbled paper in a butt joint or transitioning under the marbled paper
- Restoration of binding/boards utilized Japanese paper or leather; reattaching loose boards; repairing joints/hinges
- Toning repairs and/or rebacks with watercolors, acrylics, colored pencils, pastels, and leather dyes