The Harrington Bindery

I am often struck by the depth of knowledge and skills one must attain to be any good at binding books. That's not to say that one can not make a fine book without these things but the nuance of the art seems to come form being able to make well informed decisions. I find it almost thrilling (that is after the panic) to come to a roadblock in a process or job and be forced down a detour to another skill or process that must be concurred before continuing. Three years ago around this time I was in my final semester of my masters, my thesis consisted of a book for which I spared no expense. It was the first time in the eight years since I had started to learn the craft that I had touched a fine bookbinding leather. It was one of those moments that doesn't gain its psychological weight until it ripens with age and when it does its almost obvious. I had an English style leather pairing knife for a couple years, purchased in 2010 because of its inexpensive price and numerous men...

Over the past spring I designed this blank for a very close friend. Fitted around a mechanical engineers front shirt pocket this tiny volume needed to be exceptionally strong and as hard wearing as the owner. A 4 oz goat skin covering leather is minimally paired to provide the requested, slightly limited, flexibility, 10 x 10 1 inch grid custom designed and printed on Mohawk supper fine 25% cotton paper. End papers are custom printed turn of the century images of the city of Worcester MA.

One of the first successful Springback books I bound was a sketch book I created for my brother. After finding some rather incomplete information about the Springback structure online I started making my own prototypes. A mistake on my part converting metric to imperial lead to this book to have a pronounced lump where the too thick lever was fed into the split board covers. This structure is a couple years old at this point but last week I got to see and touch it again. I am happy to say that it is holding up beautifully and looks as new as the day I finished.