book repair

Just re-reading, again, History of Heat Engines by R Sier when it fell apart. The pages seem to be held to the spine by a thin film of glue. Some pages are still in small collections ,most are just loose. Is there a known way to repair this type of construction ? I've thought of clamping all back together with a couple of boards and standing them in glue on the spline but seems a bit dodgy. Maybe there is a tape made for this job ?

Easy, done it several times. (Not to the same book!) Just as you suggest, use PVA glue, Copydex etc., You don't need much, just smear it all over the spine with your thumb, clamp the book in your bookshelves or gently in the vice, and leave overnight or longer.

Geoff

This is the so-called "perfect" bound method.

Your book has what's known colloquially as 'Writing Pad Disease'. The perfect binding is so called because if properly done it secures the whole edge of every page. You will get the best repair if you can trim off all the old glue (guillotining is ideal, knife and straight edge - write your own safety guide here - will do). Stack the pages with the edges aligned then slide them evenly a very little so part of the page surface is exposed. Brush glue over the exposed area, slide them straight again and clamp. Put the cover on as a separate move when the pages are dry. This way grips the surface as well as the very edge and gives a more durable binding.

George

Scan it whilst it's still in bits or you will regret it later.

I am slowly getting duplicate copies of books I have and removing them from the spine, then scanning them and putting everything back is a sealed bag. Nothing of real monetary value and first editions.

Takes about 9 minutes for my high speed scanner to pull a book in and scan both sides and save as a PDF. Then that same night it gets uploaded to two different cloud accounts and every week the hard drive is also saved to a 3TB remote drive.

Thanks for the advice, "perfect" eh, another name for rubbish. The glue used is hard and difficult to cut or scrape, maybe the problem originally. Any way cleaned up as best as can, pva on spine, double check all pages in order, flat bit of wood on vice base, tap together and put spine flat on wood, then clamp-up. JS I don't have a high speed scanner, I want the book on the shelf, not in the clouds. But if all else fails I can buy another one easily.

John Stevenson:

Stripping - I believe this is the trade term - and scanning books is a very interesting idea, albeit not for everyone.

Can you say what scanner you are using and how big a typical PDF is?

Ega,

I use a Scansnap ix500 it does 50 pages at a time, top loading, looks like a printer but quite small. You can set for B&W or colour, single or double side at the same setting.

Last book I did was a very tatty Barber Coleman Gear Hobber book that I wanted to save before it got worse. It is 130 pages and it's 218,178Kb big but you can play with quality. I always leave it high quality as memory isn't expensive now.

Although it's advised you only load 50 pages you can add more as it gets down so you have a complete file and not have to append separate files.

Really it's only downside is that it has to be single sheet hence stripping books. I do have a book scanner where the spine hangs over the edge and it scans right to the edge but it's vey slow and all manual and TBH your mind goes into 'pudding' mode and you either miss a page or do a page twice. It really takes concentration.

That Barber Coleman book would have taken a good two hours on the book scanner and about 12 minutes on the Scansnap

Here's a good example, American but still the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0okv5JfCGeI

Edited By John Stevenson on 25/11/2015 10:39:32

Well done John. Once paper gets over 100 years old it starts getting dodgy for reading purposes and we really should be saving these publications before they get too rare

I've been doing the same sort of thing myself for a few years and always OCR any scanned pages so that a search database can be created

This free program makes a massive pdf library database possible, I use the old original Internet Explorer with XP to search the offline database it creates (The defunct early IE versions have activX etc)

Modern home computers are becoming amazingly powerful

Edited By Ady1 on 25/11/2015 11:15:32

Update- job done, used Copydex , couldn't find the pva, not pretty but usable. Think pva might be better because thinner. Scanning etc.- I have heard there are doubts about how long electronic storage devices might last. I think I would put my trust in good paper and ink, and a good box.

Gordon W:

"I would put my trust in good paper" - or vellum? Copydex is an under-rated adhesive and has an interesting smell.

John Stevenson:

Thank you for the very informative reply. I looked at the video and am wondering what the UK equivalent of high school kids is!

This approach to data capture and retrieval does raise some very interesting and complex questions. Should I buy a canoe and paddle it myself or rely on being able to hire one when I need it? Temperamentally I would always favour the DIY route. As a matter of fact, I did own a self-built canoe years ago and kept it on the river at Tewkesbury which in recent years has suffered greatly from flooding!

Edited By ega on 25/11/2015 16:04:59