The King James Bible is Finished!

The front board was reattached, after sewing back in the loose sections using an aerolinen flange backed with hahnemuhle. A piece of toned leather was then adhered to the inside of the spine, and to the boards. I was able to very slightly lift the original leather along the joint so that the new piece should slide underneath. Then the leather was turned in at head and tail.

There were a few more areas of paper repair to finish, and a bespoke corrugated board box lined with plastazote was made. The box included some small fragments of the text that I couldn’t find places for, as well as the documentation and handling guidelines.

Bible before treatment.

Bible after treatment.

Textblock after Treatment

Textblock before treatment.

Cornwall Archive Network & PZ Training day pt. 2

Both training days went down really well, with participants mentioning that they really enjoyed doing some practical work, and it was a nice change from watching a presentation.

Redruth

I structured the day very similarly to the course I attended at the Bodleian, with an introductory presentation describing the background and development of the fascicule system before the practical session started, so that the participants knew what they were aiming for. I had also prepared some Blue Peter style step-by-step examples as well as a few filled fascicules to show the desired outcome. Each participant got a blank fascicule that I had made back at the studio, as well as a selection off cuts of different types of paper to hinge in and some mocked-up “problem” cases. The first half of the morning I demonstrated how to attach the Japanese paper hinges to the items, and then how to attach hinges to the “problem” items. After lunch we prepared the items for hinging in, arranged them in the correct order and then adhered them to the fascicule with a dry WSP. Holly then explained how to insert a multi-page pamphlet, by sewing it to a folded page. Sam, Holly and I were around all day for advice and gave answers to any questions they had.

Bodmin

Cornwall Archives Network & PZ Training Days pt. 1

Preparation for Digitization at Cornish Studies Library in Redruth, The Regimental Museum in Bodmin and The Cornwall Record Office in Truro.

See the PZ Conservation blog post for the full article, written by Holly who prepared and led the training days. All photos were taken at the Regimental Museum in Bodmin by Matt Wreford.

I was tasked with putting together a practical session that linked in with the workshop’s content; which was making and using remoistenable tissue for quick, in-situ paper repairs as part of the digitization process.

photo courtesy of Matt Wreford

These types of repairs require very little moisture, as the repair paper has already been loaded with adhesive which has been left to dry. The adhesive is then re-humidified with a very small amount of water or solvent (or a mix of both). This can be introduced with a paintbrush, a fine spray or by the form of a reservoir, which is what I demonstrated during the training day.

The handout I created can be found here:

Remoistenable Tissue Handout

In the first session of the day we made up three different types of adhesive mostly commonly used for making remoistenable tissue – gelatine, wheat starch paste (WSP) and sodium carboxymethylcellulose (SCMC). After they were made up, they were then applied to the Japanese paper with brushes, through the paper with a Melinex support. The pieces where then left to dry on the Melinex to be used later.

photo courtesy of Matt Wreford

In the afternoon session, the attendees were shown how to remoisten the tissue, using the reservoir method, developed at the national archives. This ensures an even distribution of moisture, but does not saturate the tissue. Each attendee was given a small sample sheet to adhere the tissue to as an example, and also given a piece of damaged historical paper for them to repair.

photo courtesy of Matt Wreford

ITV West Country News comes to PZ Conservation

“Two unique Cornish language manuscripts, held at the Cornwall Record Office in Truro, will undergo much needed conservation work this spring thanks to a grant from The National Manuscripts Conservation Trust.

The work on the documents, by antiquarians William Scawen and William Borlase, will ensure that both manuscripts are in good condition for future generations to use and enjoy.” (from the Cornwall Record Office’s website.)

As the Cornwall Record Office doesn’t have an in house conservation department, the manuscripts will be worked on by us here at PZ Conservation later on this year.

A very nice guy called Steve Hardy from ITV West Country news came to visit the studio to film us doing some practical conservation and to interview Lizzie about the conservation of the manuscripts.

Holly doing some parchment repairs.

And a close up.

The ITV report can be found here, and the BBC article on the project can be found here.

To Get Up To Date!

So I’ve been a bit lax in keeping up to date with this blog recently – but to be honest, there’s not been much going on since I left Camberwell back in September.

I had a short (2 week) contract at the Wellcome collection working with a classmate to surface clean a portion of a new acquisition – the Bernard Spillsbury archive, which are the autopsy notebook’s, journal articles, lecture note and correspondence of Sir Bernard Spillsbury, the chief coroner to the London Metropolitan Police in the first half of the 20th C. The collection had been in a fire and we were cleaning off the worst of the soot and charring. The notebooks were measured for boxes, which were to be made off site, and the more fragile loose leaves were housed in melinex sleeves. No other conservation work was to be done to them until they were catalogues, which is where they went onto next.

Poisoning by Rhubarb, information packet.

At the end of October I was informed that the paper I had submitted to the ICON conference (Positive Futures, Glasgow 2013) had been accepted, and I’ll be giving a poster presentation as part of a joint session on adhesives in April – which is pretty nerve-wracking, but I’m excited about it too!!
I then moved home to Sussex, and connected with the Christ Hospital Museum in Horsham, which is where one of my final MA projects came from, and was given a few bindings that needed attention – thus saving them from being rebound – one of them has a charming decorated paper cover, which would almost certainly have been lost. I’m still working on this batch.

I also was working on a family bible belonging to my Godmother. It was a small 4to leather bound bible, which had extensions on the head, tail and foredge. The book needed re-backing, and the extensions were suffering from severe red-rot, and were very fragile. I ended up having to re sew most of the binding as well, as it was originally sewn with silk, which had now shattered, and as soon as I removed the spine linings the text-block fell to pieces! Unfortunately my camera had an episode, and so I don’t have any pictures of the project, which is a shame, because I was really pleased with the outcome – the re-back looks great and I managed to repair the extensions with skiver instead of the originally planned Japanese paper – this is a much more sympathetic fit.

Then in late October I had a phone call from ICON, offering me an internship in Penzance! I was to replace one of the girls who had found herself a job in Cambridge (congrats!), and they needed an answer ASAP! So of course I said yes, and I start on Monday (7th Jan 2013). I went along to the ICON interns introductory meeting back at the end of November, and got to meet all the other interns from over the UK and saw a few familiar faces, as well as getting to know Holly, who I was going to be spending the next 18 months with.

I’ve also recently been asked (after expressing an interest back in October) to work with the Book and Paper Group’s graduate liaison officer –which I’ll be doing from the other end of a laptop, but I’m looking forward to the task!

So now that I’m back doing some practical work, I’ll have plenty more to write about, so expect more updates soon!