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TIL most old books were bound with wood boards, not cardboard, and I've been wrong for 12 years
Was reading a book conservation blog out of the UK and it said boards made of oak or beech were normal until the 1600s, which explains why every wooden board I've pulled off a wrecked spine felt way heavier than I expected. I've been telling people at my local bindery group that cardboard was the norm the whole time, and now I feel like an idiot. Any of you ever work with wood boards on a repair, and how do you deal with the warping?
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riley4320d ago
I pulled a 1580s German prayer book apart last spring and the oak board on the front cover was 3/8 of an inch thick, which was a real pain because the spine had already cupped inward from the wood drying out at a different rate than the leather. What most people miss about the warping is that it isn't really the wood's fault on its own, it's that the grain of the board runs parallel to the spine while the leather pulls across it, so the two fight each other for a couple hundred years and the board loses. The fix I've had the best luck with is a slow rehumidification in a sealed box with damp blotter paper for a few weeks, then clamping it flat between blotters while it dries so it comes back close to level. Rushing that step is what cracks old boards, and once oak splits along the grain you can't really glue it back and hide it. Some folks will thin the board down from the inside too, since taking off a little material lowers how much it can bow without changing how the outside looks.
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