No, this is not a diatribe for prayer in public schools! Rather I’ll be showing you how I constructed the case for the prayer book I was commissioned to recase (it was a recase, not a rebind, which involves resewing the spine). Click on thumbnails to view full size, and please excuse any freaky formatting - still working out that bug!
Here is the offending case matter -
I knew I wouldn’t be able to use the boards from the original case. As you can see the leather (bonded, in this case - ha! double entendre - tag, your it!) had degraded and the binders board underneath was scuffed. Also that tape was not easily liberated from the spine and boards. I thought recasing using new boards would be best to preserve the text block and give a second life to a well used book. My client wanted a closure along the fore edge, and we decided on a fold over flap with magnetic enclosure.
I made my measurements, cut out the pieces, marked them and laid them out in sequence.
After measuring for the proper length and width to cover the case, I cut the leather (used a high quality bonded leather for speed and ease - I only had 24 hours to complete the job, and paring leather in a painstakingly meticulous job best not hurried) and glued the boards down using a rule for spacing.
Then I cut corners and other turn-ins and glued the pastedowns, and placed the case flat in a makeshift table-top press.
In about an hour, I was able to pull the case out. Here it is inside and out.
And, of course, the glamour shot. I embedded some magnets in the flap and front cover (I’ll discuss that step in a future post).