That was my rabbit hole... When I found that a bone folder ran between 5 and 10 dollars, but that I could get a bookbinding starter kit with 2 bone folders for $16... well, that was an easy decision. Skipping over the YouTube tutorial videos and buying odds and ends from paint brushes to book repair tape, I decided to try my hand on repairing three of my Hardy Boys books. There were three different editions to work on, a brown endpaper House on the Cliff, a white endpaper House on the Cliff, and a silhouette edition of The Tower Treasure.
The white endpaper HC had split at the front. The text block was intact and connected to the back cover, but the front cover had completed separated from the text. The silhouette TT was basically in the same state, but had a gauze crash around the text block that was still attached to the front cover. The front cover was loose, but not fully separated from the text block yet. The brown endpaper HC was the most challenging. Its covers were still snugly connected to the text block, but the block itself was split in two pieces in the middle of the book.
I'm going to skim over the first two repairs, since I forgot to document them at all while I was working on them. For these, I scanned the endpaper artwork into the computer and printed new endpapers that I could fold and attach with PVA to the front and back of the text block. I removed both text blocks completely and cleared off the glue and gauze from the spine of them. Then I used the PVA to glue them together, and ultimately to glue the folded endpaper directly onto the boards of the cover. As you can see, the end result was a very snug fit for text and cover!
The third book was a challenge. I knew that I had no way to replace the original endpapers, so it was essential to save them. First, I separated cover from text block, then used PVA to reseal the text pages into one block, with the flyleaf attached at the front and back.
Once this was dry, I reinforced the spine of the text block with a section of book repair tape cut to the width of the spine. Then I placed a full width of book repair tape over the spine of the text block to glue into the covers.
To prep the covers, I had to carefully peel the endpapers up from the front and rear boards of the cover. I was (miraculously) able to do this with only some minor damage at one corner. Before placing the book repair tape across the spine, I had scored the backing paper on it with two lines at the width of the spine. Then I removed the central strip of backing paper and set the text block in place. I slipped the back flap of tape under the lifted endpaper on the rear cover, aligned the rear flyleaf image and rear endpaper so that they were just touching, and removed the backing paper from the back flap. I carefully pressed the endpaper flap onto the adhesive of the book repair tape.
After this, I applied PVA to the underside of this join of the rear endpapers, and pressed it down into place. I placed this in my jig to press it while it dried. For the front of the book, I first applied PVA to the underside of the front endpaper directly on the board of the cover. Then I slipped the front flap under the lifted front endpaper and aligned the front flyleaf with the front endpaper. Once the join was snug, I lifted the endpaper at one end while pinning it in place at the other, in order to remove the backing paper from the repair tape. Then I worked the two together and used the bone folder to smooth the papers down.
After a day in the jig-press, the book looks as wonderful as the first two attempts! I'm really excited at how well the repairs worked, and particularly proud that they went together without any major gaffes, and without needing to start over at any point. I have one or two more books that have loose bindings, and feel confident about fixing them soon. I sense my next challenge will be with a copy of The Secret of Pirate's Hill, which has some damage to the cover on the outside of the spine, in addition to the loose connection of cover to text block. I think I'll need to use the repair tape on the inside of the spine to mend it, then cover that with a spine stiffener before affixing the text block back onto the covers. I'll let you know how it works! I might even try to make a video of the repair...
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