Operation Hymnbook

My January 24 Project 365 image was of my hymnbook project. I'm a little late in posting this, but better late than never. The books were both pretty hashed; here are some images of their pages. I had to cut off the front and back pages because they couldn't be saved. But these books were pretty easy to fix since they had just come out of the linen spine that held the text block (the pages of hymns that are sewn together and glued to a linen covering).



This type of book is called a flat-back book. The actual spine of the text block cannot be glued directly to the cover spine or else the book will not open. Pull any hardback book off a shelf and look at the spine. It will most likely have a headband (on hymnbooks they are the green band) on the ends of the textblock, but there will be a space between the block itself and the spine of the book.



So because the text block separated as it did, I can glue the textblock straight back as it was with my PVA (a strong fast-drying glue that bookbinders like to use).

Someone had used clear packing tape to secure the front of the text block to the endsheet (picture below on the right), so I actually just glued that to the endsheet to hold it down. But I also took binding tape and taped the front and back of the textblock to the endsheet pages, otherwise there would be a gap there.

So that's pretty much it. I have fun figuring out how to fix these, and after I do, I'll know there are fewer sad hymnbooks lying around. :)