At Rest

Confession: I haven't begun repairing my copy of The Disappearing Floor yet. I did take some time to look the book over to check out what I needed to do and how to approach it. I'm still uncertain about how much work I want to do with the cover itself. I'd like to give it a proper repair, but I'm not sure how well I can manage the necessary work.

The best repair would be if I could separate the actual printed paper cover from the boards first, then back it with an intact sheet to back all the tears and weak areas, then replace the boards. I'm not confident that I can remove the paper from the boards without damaging them further. The same applies to the endpapers. If I had something to dissolve the glue and allow me to remove the paper, that would be wonderful. I don't know what would work...

So, I stalled the project while I consider. Ultimately, I want to record the repair work as fully as possible. That brings us to a second consideration - that of recording the repair work. I did spend some time working with OBS Studio to set up my cameras and audio so that I can start recording once I'm ready to do the repairs.

The issue is what will work best as a video. A full-length video of the repair would be long and feature moments of inactivity, but an edited video would mean a new level of project management that is again beyond my knowledge. I could learn, but I was looking forward to this being a more polished showcase of the process. That was always going to be a stretch, but it is a nice hope.

Since I'm not going anywhere soon, I think the stall will only be temporary. I want to experiment with the adhesive on the book, then get to work on the repair. I still need to think about the filming of the process. Is it enough to show the spine of the text block with the aging bits of fraying cloth and adhesive and explain what I plan to do, or do I need to show the full process of removing it and cleaning it up for new PVA?

I think the ultimate answer lies in the middle, with some repairs best shown in full, and others introduced, perhaps shown in a sample, then skipped for the most part. This may end up being more of a test, after all, if only of the video composition.

As an afterthought, I did another repair within the last year that I intended to upload to YouTube, but the audio didn't record properly, so I couldn't use about half of the footage. I started working on it to salvage what I could, but I wasn't happy enough with the result to post it. I may take a little time now to revisit it and try overdubbing some audio and see how that plays.