My second visit to see Mike Sullivan (and son) has revealed to me a great deal about the book-binding trade! Mike tutored me effortlesely through the process of making my bible replicas (invites to my show for the Freecycler's who kindly donated to me the objects I am using in this project), using old breakfast cereal boxes for the cover boards and a the specialist gluing technique known as "The Meringue Effect" for the specific textural daubing necessary to keep the glue from unevenly drying. I had great fun and can't wait to go back next week to put the finishing touches to my invites and the original bibles - namely gold leafing and gluing the insides!!
When I stopped by to see Mike, the bookbinding chap who gave us such an in-depth talk at The Minories back in May, I was expecting a suitably in-depth discussion about the bibles I brought to show him. He didn't disappoint! Mike was great - he offered me load of advice and knowledge about the materials and techniques used to make the bibles. For example, the fact that they are made of leather-cloth (now more commonly known as Rexine) and used a technique known as Yapp to bend the edges in slightly to stop the cover getting ruined easily when being taken in and out of the pocket! He told me how to take the bible apart, as he would do when restoring an old book in this way - he gets lots of bibles, and all kinds of books at that - a proper craftsman! He also gave me some white paper of appropriate GSM (grammes per square inch) to use for my project, which will involve re-purposing these bibles into christmas cards and replicating them. Mike was extremely helpful and has offered to help me some more when it comes to doing some tricky aspects of this work. His studio is amazing too, lots of interesting examples of his work - not to mention the rather handsome Victorian press you can see in the picture!
