Leather applied, book in the press!

So, after putting on Joseph Martin's American Tapestry on the cd player (lovely, quiet piano pieces), I removed my jewelry (well most of it) and taped down my bracelets.  For me this is easier than chasing down someone to help me put them back on.  I hate nothing more than trying to smooth jewelry marks out of wet leather!

I re-checked the leather. Then I removed the book from the press and traced the outline back onto the leather, carefully marking head and tail.  I trimmed off the excess leather on the sides, cut notches into the head & tail for the spine and then rounded the head/tail and fringed the now rounded spine areas.  I also trimmed the corners a bit, but not too much.  

I flipped the leather over, onto scrap paper, and wet it thoroughly.  After letting it stand a minute, I re-wet it. It is old, fairly dry leather in a dry climate so I really want to hydrate it.  Then, although my new batch of wheat starch paste is acting weird, I re-wet it and massaged it into a nice consistency with my favorite paste brush.  It is now behaving better.  It was just a little too stiff for my taste.

After two more layers of paste, scraped off in-between, I am now ready to brave application.  Thankfully, the book block is protected so off I go.  I lay the book carefully on the spine area of the leather.  Turning the book away from me, I smooth the leather on the front then the back.  Fairly quickly, I check and recheck the spine, front and back.  Wow - everything looks great.  I smooth it all with my favorite teflon bone folder (thanks to my engineer honey) and then start working on laying down the edges inside the covers.  Well, after trimming the corners more and adjusting the notches for the stretch in the leather, I get the corners all laid down.  I closed the covers and checked the corners, rounding them with yet another bone folder.  They look great!

Now I stand the book up on the edge of my bench hook and start to work the spine pieces into the lovely tube on the spine of the book.  Since the pieces are fringed, it's fairly easy to work them in.  It takes a bit of finesse to get them each into the center of the tube.  Voila!  I then next re-check front, back and spine.  I now slide the top/tail against my bench hook with a bit of pressure to 'fatten them up' a bit.  They also look great.  

I now close the book after inserting foam spacer pages and re-check the corners to make sure they are rounded and that the inside of the corners are laying down.  I re-check the spine and decide to leave the transition to the front fairly flat.  I quickly press the book and then pull it out to recheck everything.  It all looks great.  Now, back into the press until tomorrow.  Whew!