Cook Book

A good friend of mine inherited this cook book from her aunt, in this condition. It is a little dated with some of the recipes, but she claims it also contains priceless ones. Looking for a new project to tackle, I offered to repair it for her. The covers were totally detached, the endpapers were falling off the boards, and the first section and the last two pages were in pieces. (The middle image shows the first section's pages and the bottom is the last page of the index. This is also the page missing the most information).

I began by flattening and repairing the damaged pages. I lined them with heat set tissue, and added additional tissue to the fraying edges. The first pages of the first sections were missing, so when the pages I had were repaired, I guarded them to pages of Dove Grey to complete the section. I also made new endpapers from Dove Grey. Next, I cleaned the spine, repositioned the sections, tipped on the last two pages with paste, and lined the spine with Japanese Tissue. Then I put the first section and end papers in place and put the book in the press. Then I lined the spine again with linen. Once that lining was dry, I sewed on the endpapers, the first section, and repaired the sewing for the sections in the middle which needed it. Then I slightly rounded the spine and lined it with a heavy weight paper to help hold the shape.
Then I made a new spine piece from linen lined Morike, complete with 10 pt board stiffener. I lifted the cloth on the covers, positioned them on the book and carefully moved it to the press. Next I attached the new spine piece to the covers, glued down the turn ins, and then cased in the text block via the linen and new endpapers.
Finally, I did some Japanese tissue repairs on the cover and toned the new spine piece to match with acrylics. (The middle image shows pages from the first section and the bottom is the last page of the index).