Maureen Duke’s school books
Assigned as my final project at the end of the Graduate Diploma year, these five pamphlet books belonged to renowned bookbinder Maureen Duke during her school years.
Three of the five books were staple bound, and four of the five exhibited damage done by staple rust. Other complications included one missing cover, torn paper covers, fraying cloth covers, paper tears and missing corners, and missing pages.
The project also included housing for all five books together once treated.
Click on a book below to see its treatment
Chelation
In order to remove the damage from the rust on the paper, I made a 3% solution of EDTA, with sodium hydroxide to raise the pH to 9. This was then used to make a solution with 1% sodium dithionite. Unfortunately, given the gloss on the pages, full submersion in a bath could not be done. Therefore, the chelator was carried in xanthan gel, with two batches made to experiment: a 1% and 5% solution of the EDTA and sodium dithionite mixture in gel. This process was successful in removing the rust, however the staining remained. Given the condition of the weak paper after chelation, it was determined that undergoing any stain removal technique could be even more damaging to the areas that were to be used to sew through and rebind.
Making of the chelation solution
Making of the gel carrier
Setting the chelation solution in the gel carrier
Set up at my bench, ready to chelate
Housing
The second half of the project was to create housing for the five pamphlet books so that they could be stored in an archive. The issue was that each book was a different size, which then meant that the books could not be housed in the same box together. The books also needed to stay together to minimize risk of disassociation. So I came up with the solution to have each book in its own four flap folder, all housed together in a corrugated box, with minimal ethafoam padding to accommodate for the books of small size.
