These lovely specimens are from the Mano/Dean Wood Type collection at the a Mano Press in Hayward, California. There’s a flickr set chocked full of photos — they made me very happy to scroll through them!
Month: August 2009
Early Office Museum
When I wrote about the Lifestyle Craft letterpress combo kit the other day, dinah commented that it “looks to me like the ancient ‘cyclostyle’ thing schools used (50+ years ago) to print PTA notices.” I didn’t know what that was, but wikipedia says
The Cyclostyle duplicating process is a form of stencil copying invented by David Gestetner in London in 1890. A stencil is cut with the help of small toothed wheels on a special paper underlaid with carbon paper which serves as a printing form. Gestetner named the Cyclostyle after a drawing tool he used. In 1875 Thomas Edison received a patent for the “electric pen”, which a decade later became the basis for the mimeograph machine. Gestetner’s cyclostyle was similar and provided more automated, faster reproductions.
I also found a picture of the machine at the fascinating Early Office Museum website. Look here for the “exhibit” on early copying machines.
The exhibit and the cyclostyle brought back memories of my mom making duplicates at home of the choral music she wrote using a gelatin-based system. According to the museum, it was a “hektograph” or “spirit” duplicator.
Genuine Fake Bookshelf
 Don’t have room for a bookshelf? Use Deborah Bowness’s hand-printed wallpaper to fill up your room. Comes in 2 designs: ‘Genuine Fake Bookshelf’ and ‘Original Genuine Bookshelf’ |
Bookmaking Supplies on Etsy
Yesterday, I wrote about bookmaking tools I found on Etsy. Today’s post is the supplies I found, in addition to Susan Scott’s Yardwork bookcloth, that I wrote about earlier.
| Piacere Mio sells single jars of PVA. | 
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Diane Falvey of Iris and Lily will custom cut book board to your specifications. She also sells pre-made text blocks. |
| KarleighJae sells leather hides and pieces — like this amazing green one. 3 pieces of cut Italian Lambskin at least 6″ x 18″ are $25. (She also sells Davey board scraps.) Another shop, awal1, sells faux and real leather in a variety of colors. |
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The two sisters who run Snippets of Time sell vintage wallpaper samples that can be used for book covers. They also sell other ephemera, like maps and bingo cards. |
| Ana Buigues of contexto sells leather faux bookbinding endbands, including a sampler of various colors for $3. | 
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Several shops have paper for sale: washimatta sells packs of washi, as does Washi Paper and Pebble Stone Papery. My Marbled Papers shop sells washi, marbled and Suminagashi papers. |
Bookmaking Tools on Etsy
When I first started selling on Etsy (it’s been exactly 3 years!) there were few books and no bookmaking supplies. Recently I was looking for unwaxed linen thread, and discovered that there are now lots of shops selling tools and supplies, usually in small quantities with low shipping costs. Here’s some interesting tools I found (tomorrow I’ll post the supplies).
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Wren Haven Tools sells these nifty micro scissors in 2 sizes, as well as felt covered weights, boxmaking and bookmaking angle tools for cutting. They even sell a angle for left handed people! |
| Instead of my manual method for making perfect bound books, you can use Kirk Whitham’s binding machine from his Atomic Binding shop. He’s got 2 sizes, to make up to 5-1/2″ books ($69 + shipping) and the larger to make up to to 11″ tall ($99 + shipping). He’s got heaps of info about it on his website including a you-tube video. | 
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UberArt sells this solid oak book press for $70 plus shipping — years ago my husband made me one with a bench screw mechanism as explained here. Mine presses multiple books at once, unlike UberArt’s, but the materials alone cost as much as the Etsy press. |
| Randy Arnold sells wooden bone folders, including this one made of ebony with a pearl inlay. Piacere Mio sells bone folders made of bone, as well as single jars of PVA. | 
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Instead of a Japanese screw punch, you can buy this “Bookbinder’s Screw-down Double-sided Hole Punch.” Kristin, of The Indigo Raven, says it drills through 2-3mm of cardstock, matboard, buckram… It has two hole size options: 1.6mm (1/16th”) and 2.3mm (3/32nd”). The punch can accommodate materials up to 3mm thick. |
Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum
The Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Two Rivers Wisconsin is celebrating their 10th anniversary this year. The museum is in an old factory, and they’ve decorated it with large type and the awning is a giant drawer pull, like the ones on type cases. Nick Sherman has a great pool of photos on Flickr. And there’s a nice interview by Steven Heller about the museum and the history of wood type here (and a few more photos, including a gorgeous hand-cut wooden Q).
