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Binding structure model, including templates for punching sections and for cutting and paring leather
The basic structure of a fine leather binding has changed little over the past 300 years. The text block is sewn onto supports, the spine carefully shaped, and the boards laced on. The book is covered in leather that has been precision-pared for protection, flexibility, and a sumptuous presentation.
This year’s topic is crafting a cutaway model of a full fine leather binding. The book will be covered in leather only halfway up so the construction remains visible for future reference. Features include hand-sewn endbands, champhered boards, marbled flexi endsheets with hidden cloth hinges, the “inner hinge” variation on the loose guard (found in Laura Young’s Bookbinding and Conservation by Hand), and a hollow tube on the spine.
You will find this cutaway model invaluable for teaching bookbinding or for refreshing your memory on aspects of book structure. For those who delight in the engineering aspects of binding, the binding’s visible structure will make as lovely a design as any assortment of inlays, onlays, tooling.
These models were made as demos while teaching a bookbinding workshop. They may include marks or notes made to aid students. Colors and patterns will vary. Cutaway bindings revealing structural features are sometimes available.
Set of three binding structure models, including separate endsheet model for each and two detached spine wrappers.
The Simplified Binding developed by Sün Evrard has an elegant, streamlined look. The book block is rounded only, not backed. A spine piece of thinned leather with a card stiffener is made off the book then attached. Boards are beveled at the inside spine edge to match the book’s natural shoulder and attached to the text block after being fully covered with decorative paper. Rolled endbands and leather hinges enhance the decor.
The German three-piece Bradel Binding differs from the Simplified in that the spine is both rounded and backed, and the boards are not shaped at the spine edge. The spine is covered with thinned leather over a stiffened paper “bonnet” that has already been attached to reinforced endsheets. Turn-ins are completed after board attachment to hide some aspects of the binding’s construction that the Simplified Binding leaves visible. Binders may choose sewn or rolled endbands.
Our third structure is inspired by a binding by Jen Lindsay. Still elegant but much leaner, the binding is stripped down to only the essential elements: boards glued onto the flange of a separate spine piece that the cords have been laced through. The leather spine wrapper is flush-cut at the head and tail, there are no endbands, uncovered boards made of laminated colored paper are attached and this attachment remains visible at the head and tail spine edge
These models were made as demos while teaching a bookbinding workshop. They may include marks or notes made to aid students. Colors and patterns will vary. Cutaway bindings revealing structural features are sometimes available.
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, illustrations by Julian De Narvaez. Irvine, CA: Suntup Editions, 2022.
Sewn boards binding: Covered in inkjet-printed Ruscombe Mill chateau vellum paper with Fabriano Roma flexi endpapers. Bound 2026.
9 x 6 x 1 ¼”
23 x 15.5 x 3.5 cm
The protagonist’s horrific wartime experiences leave him unmoored in time, space, and reality. The book is titled both normally and inverted as the archetypal tool of his postwar profession: the optometrist’s Snellen eye chart. Numbers on the spine document years between his numerous time jumps.