Book-cloth (again)

 

I've made book-cloth before using fusible web to back the cloth with paper. This is a different method.

The cloth is a light cotton fabric that I found in a rack of swatches at Spotlight — probably intended for quilting or something. They're 600 x 450 mm, sufficient to cover a couple of A5-ish books, or one A4-ish.

I lay it out flat on a polypropylene sheet, and then use a spatula to drive a 50/50 mix of acrylic medium and 4% methyl cellulose paste through the weave, right across the whole surface of the piece. 

Then I turn the fabric over, smooth it out again on the polyprop sheet, and with a wide, flat brush I brush more of the paste/medium mix across the whole surface. You can see the brush marks reflecting in this photo.

The paste mix glues it to the backing sheet, but it won't stick to the polypropylene and can be peeled away after it's dried.

When it has dried thoroughly, I'll peel it off the poly backing sheet, roll it up loosely, and put it away ready for later use. The paste mix forms an impermeable barrier so the cloth can be glued to boards without the glue striking through the weave of the fabric. It also provides a measure of protection for the cloth from dirt and grease, and makes it easier to clean.

This process can alter the tone of the colours of the printed cloth, usually darkening them somewhat. That's something to be aware of, and if it is crucial that the colours be maintained, it would probably be better to use the fusible web and paper method.

New Sketch Book

 

Because I don't already have too many empty sketchbooks, I felt that I really should buy this one.

It's soft-bound, stitched 16-leaf signatures of 90gsm laid paper, with the signatures alternating between bright white and ivory (cream) coloured paper. It has 192 leaves, 155 x 205 mm.

The cream-coloured sheets are dark enough that three-tone drawing would work well, but not dark enough to be overwhelming.

The paper is fine for drawing on, being fairly smooth but with an adequate tooth, but it is really too light for wet media. Its surface is okay, but it does cockle quite a bit with moisture.

It's a very convenient size to slip into a bag, or even a (fairly large) pocket.

I quite like it, though I'd like it better if the paper was heavier — say 110 to 150 gsm.

I've only done one drawing in it so far, mainly as a test to see how it would respond to watercolour wash.

The black line in this picture is Copic Multiliner, 0.3mm and 0.05mm.

The watercolour is pan colour from Maimeri and Winsor & Newton.

I like the format of this book. It feels a bit more spacious than an A5 book (though in fact it's pretty similar in size), but is more compact and convenient to carry around than an A4. I could wish the paper was a bit heavier, but at least it's of good quality.

Dip Pens

 

I really like the line created by a dip pen.

My favourite of these four is the second from the right; my least favourite is the right-most one.

The one on the right is made from stainless steel I think, and it's quite stiff and unresponsive. The other three are made from very thin, springy carbon steel, and they'll give me a beautifully fluid and variable line.

They take a bit of getting used to for anyone used to drawing with, say, modern fibre-tipped pens or the like. The croquil nibs are very sharp, and will dig into the paper at the least excuse. If the tip catches, the springy steel releases very suddenly and can spatter ink a surprisingly long way. They require a very sensitive and delicate hand, and unlike a ball-point pen, they can't just be scrubbed around in any old direction.

I've had these pens for years, and I love them, but the nibs aren't immortal. They do wear out. And I know remarkably little about them as a class of tool, so if I have to replace them I'd really be flailing in the dark a bit.

I think the one on the left is a Speedball Hunt nib, but I couldn't swear to it. The second one to the right has 66 (or maybe 99, but I'm pretty sure it's 66) engraved on its barrel. What that means, I have no real idea.

Next day...

I had a go at making a holder for my favourite croquil nib from a fragment of oak. It works well and feels good in the hand, though I think I was a bit timid about thinning down the tail — that could go a little further.

The nib is held in place in its 6mm hole by a short oak plug. It's pretty firm. I bored the hole a bit too deep, which made getting the nib in the right place more troublesome than it needed to be; in future I'll measure the length of the nib's barrel before I bore the hole.

Buying a commercial version of this thing would be about ten bucks, which means that making my own isn't exactly fiscally viable if I was charging minimum wage for my own time. However, it is satisfying.

Horses For Courses

Output —
my hands aren't as steady as they once were

Right to left:
Hunt 101
Speedball 99
Speedball C-5
Speedball D-5

It goes without saying that different nibs give you very different results. The two croquil nibs (the 101 and 99) are very similar, with just a difference in average line weight. The C-5 provides much less line weight variation, though there is a little. And the D-5, with its disc-end, gives a very heavy and consistent line, varying only because the disc on the end of the nib is oval, not round. 

Hand Rails

 

I made this pair of hand rails for the steps up on to some friends' verandah, so that their 90-some year old Dad can get up and down without toppling into the garden.

They're just treated pine, and they'll be painted. Eventually.

The one on the left will also have a grab-rail mounted on it; I haven't yet fully decided how that will be achieved. A few galvanised plumbing fittings and a length of threaded pipe will probably do the trick, though it wouldn't be all that difficult to do in wood either.

Cutting Corners

 

When covering the boards for a case-bound book, whether using book-cloth or paper, one needs to mitre the corners to minimize the overlap bulk when it's all folded over and glued down. That mitre needs to be offset from the corner of the boards a bit so that the folds overlap and the boards don't show, and in theory that distance out from the corner is supposed to be 1½ times the thickness of the boards.

I generally use 2mm or 3mm grey board for this purpose.

I designed these cutting templates in Blender and printed them on my Ender 3 in PLA+, and they not only ensure that I'm cutting the right distance away, but also that I'm getting a perfect 45º mitre.

In truth, the tolerances required aren't all that fine, and I could easily get away with just using the 4.5mm offset template (for 3mm board) for both board thicknesses, but it's not really any more trouble to make a separate template for each. So that's what I did.

Plums

 

Gate Post

 

This post used to hold our letter box, but it was too close to the driveway, and the box got clipped by incoming vehicles. So I shifted the letter box over to the other side of the tree a few years ago, but left the white post standing there since it's a useful visible indicator of when you're about to drive into a big tree.

Today I sawed the top off one of the fence posts I put in a little while ago, and turned the off-cut into a finial for our gate post. And here it is.

Etching Press Lockdowns

 

Until now, I've just secured my little etching press to its trolley with a pair of G-clamps. They worked fine, but they were ugly and intrusive.

I'd always intended to replace those with something a bit less ad-hoc, and today I finally got around to that. I turned a couple of knobs from a scrap of pink birch, set a nut in each, and put a couple of M8 bolts up through the trolley top and press carriage to secure everything.

The new shiny knobs are indicated in the photo by the big red arrows.

I'm pretty sure that just the two bolts will be quite adequate to keep everything in place, but I can always add more if need be.

Stretcher Bars

 

I made a set of stretcher bars out of some scrap 40x40 pine for a canvas 500x500mm, not because I have any particular painting in mind, but just to see how easy or hard it would be to make them. They're not hard.

They're not enormously expensive to buy, but they're far from free, and this gives me ultimate flexibility when it comes to size and profile.

I've learned one or two things in the process:

• It would be a good idea to leave a bit of a horn on the tenon, to be sawn off after assembly.
• Also, if I put a mortice at one end of each bar and a tenon at the other, they should (I think) be interchangeable. Though that's probably only worth while if I was making a whole bunch to be assembled later. For this one I did each bar with either mortices or tenons, to minimise the chances of getting myself lost.

The bars need to incline down on the front face towards the inner edge to keep them free of the canvas, and to help with that they have a thin raised bead running along the outer edge. That was easily made in one step on the table saw.

Sanding on the lathe

 

I made this sanding bed to go with the wheel I re-did yesterday for my lathe. It seats pretty firmly against the ways of the lathe for the moment, but if it gets looser with wear I can easily hold it in place with a little g-clamp.

It's all perfectly square, both horizontally and vertically, which will be a boon when it comes to truing up frame mitres and what-not. Also, with the Jacobs chuck on a #2 morse, I could use it as a horizontal borer, with a bit of faffing about and packing and stuff.

Something I discovered in the making of this is that the ways of my lathe are not symmetrical — the near side splays out to its feet at 10 degrees, while the far side is only eight degrees. That was unexpected. That means that the sanding bed can only go on one way, though that's not really much of an issue.

The wheel was one I made a while ago to go on one of my faceplates. But bolting it and unbolting it again when I wanted the faceplate for something else got to be a bit of a pain.

So I bought a M30x3.5 nut and epoxied it into an inset on the back.

Inevitably it wasn't absolutely 100% square and true, so I had to strip off the old sanding surface, re-true the face, and then put some more sanding belt strips on.

I think it took me about an hour and a half to get a successful emplacement of the nut, and it's a little bit frustrating to think that it's a job that could have been done — and probably done better — in five minutes with a welder and a bit of steel plate. However, I don't own any welding equipment, nor do I have anywhere to store it if I did.

Turning Tool Rack

 

This morning I whipped up a little rack for my carbide turning tools, plus the centring drill I made the other day, and a couple of skews.

It's just 12mm plywood, but it will do the job and should last longer than I will.

The carbide scrapers are very easy to use, but they are not the greatest of tools for leaving a fine surface, and I pretty much use them only for rough shaping.

The majority of my tools — the ones I use, anyway — are hanging up beside the lathe.

They're very convenient there, but I've run out of hook space.

I've got a bunch of miscellaneous others stored in a drawer, but they are pretty junky and I seldom use them.

Front Porch Knob

 

I'm stuck at home waiting for firewood to arrive (some time between 0930 and 1530, they say). So I'm pottering about filling my time by building firewood-stacking things to make my eventual firewood-stacking more stable.

I whipped up that little railing extension beside the porch upright, to support the firewood stack so it doesn't all tumble out into the driveway. The decorative knob was something I did ages ago when I was just screwing around on the lathe.

I still haven't built my side-of-the-house firewood shelter, because I keep putting it off due to the cost of materials, and by the time I'm in a position to make a start on it, the materials are even more expensive. Doh!

Depth Drill

 

In keeping with my tradition of spending more time making thing for making things than actually making things, today I made a hand-held depth drill, using a 12mm twist bit I had lying about, some oak, and a bit of copper tube for the ferrule.

These things are used to bore a hole to a given depth for lathe work. This both makes it easier to hollow out the form with gouges, and also gives a visual indication when you've reached the chosen depth for the bowl or whatever.

This particular one will go to a depth of about 105mm, which will probably be fine for most of the work I ever do on the lathe.

Bowl of Mystery

 

I don't know what timber this bowl is made from. Beech, maybe. It's small, only 160mm in diameter. I've polished it with beeswax.

Piercing Cradle

 

Made another job-doing tool — this time a piercing cradle for accurately stabbing the stitching holes in signatures for bookbinding. It's just MDF and hardboard, so nothing pretty, but it does the job well and makes the task 100% easier and better.

I've made it large enough to cope with A4 page signatures, though since I only have an A4 printer (and thus can only make A5 or smaller folded signatures) 99% of my work will be A5.

Little Rimu Goblet

 

For no particular reason today I whipped out this little goblet made from a chunk of a reclaimed rimu joist.

It's not very big, only 90mm tall and 65mm in diameter, so not much bigger than an egg-cup. You'd need a fairly big egg though.

Another Oak Platter

 

This is about as big a disc as I can manage on my little lathe, and it's only about 225mm. It absolutely maxes out at 250mm, and its motor is so gutless that it tends to stop a lot when I'm working out towards the perimeter. If I ever come into a massive bunch of moneys, I'd like to buy a bigger, fancier lathe. 

I normally try to aim to turn things pretty thin, but this time I wanted to go a bit chunky.  It's 35mm thick, and I've only gone down 12mm or so in the middle, so there's still a decent mass of oak left there in spite of the big knotty chunk out of the rim.

Kwila Thing

 

My latest attempt at turning some wood is a chunk of kwila, a very hard, brittle timber much used these days for decking. It's quite tricky to turn, and I found I eventually got the best results with scrapers rather than gouges.

I'm not sure what it would be; a vase maybe? Or a cup? It will probably just end up having knick-knacks kept in it. It's just under 115mm in diameter.

I didn't hollow it out right to the bottom, because the piece of wood had some pretty bad checking, and I think it would probably just have flown to pieces if I'd tried to cut it around the cracked area.

A profile view

The nasty and dangerous cracks

I like the waisted shape of it, and I think I might try it again in some timber that's a bit easier to work.

I find kwila a very attractive timber, but it's not the most amenable.

Another Oak Platter

 

Sometimes things don't fly apart, and sometimes the centre can hold.

The bigger platter is still small, only 200mm in diameter. Like the earlier, smaller one, this one is also not suitable for oozy foods due to a dirty great crack. Also, I'm pretty sure the wax finish I used on it is not food-safe, so there's that too.

The one I did yesterday definitely did not hold.

It also had a large crack in it, and when my gouge caught as I was attempting to under-cut the rim, it flew into two parts. One of the parts stayed in the lathe, the other ended up down the other end of my workshop.

The catch would have ruined the rim in any case, but if it had stayed in one piece I could have trimmed it down and salvaged something of it.

And another...

This will be the last of them for the moment, until I can prepare some more blanks. This one actually has no cracks in it, so it could conceivably be used to eat from, so I just finished it with beeswax. The other two are done with a tinted Liberon wax finish, called Black Bison I think.

Oak Dish

 

On a whim this afternoon I turned a simple little oak dish from a piece out of the scrap pile. It's not very big, only 170mm in diameter, and definitely not watertight due to the knotty bits leaving holes through it. I haven't thought what I might use it for, probably nothing much.

Memorial

 

This weekend, on January 20th, we had a memorial gathering for my mother, Hilary, near Kawerau in the bay of Plenty. She'd stated that she didn't want a funeral, but she did want a good party.

Lots and lots of people obliged.

I made this casket for her ashes out of reclaimed rimu, and engraved the brass plaque with the aid of my friend Ozy's computer-controlled router thingummy.

My sister Leah, and Mum's oldest and best friend Colleen, gave beautiful and moving eulogies, and several other people spoke as well. The weather behaved, the food was plentiful and good, and the day went off very well indeed, not least thanks to the good offices of Ren & Maria who provided the wonderful venue as well as the lion's share of the organizational labour. Excellent people.

Trophy Chalice

 

Annette wanted a trophy cup for her work quiz champions, so I made her this chalice.

The timber is pink birch, and the cup stands about 200mm tall.

Mum Died Today

 My beautiful Mum, Hilary, died this afternoon.

Mercifully it was after she'd got back home to her own place, so it was in a much nicer and more loving environment, and with more loving people.

I had planned to fly up to be with her tomorrow afternoon. Too late.

Diamond Hones

 

I bought myself some diamond hones via AliExpress, and 3d-printed some double-sided holders for them.

They are about 20x150mm, on 1mm steel sheets.

I got 320, 600, 800, 1200 and 2000 grits.

The 320 holder (in the clips under the lid) is empty on the other side; I'll probably glue a strip of leather in that socket for use as a strop.

Pfeil Gouge Tray

 

On an extended trip away recently, it came to me that it would have been nice to be able to do a bit of block cutting. My turntable gouge rack, though convenient for the benchtop, isn't the sort of thing I can just slip into a bag and carry away. So I set to work in Blender and designed this little flat(ish) tray, and after a few test prints of an individual cavity, printed the whole array on my Ender 3. It comes out at 160 x 200 mm.

I'll make a shallow lidded plywood box for protection, and I'll probably just glue the tray in the bottom of it.

I've included cavities for 10 x 5 x 2 mm magnets to hold the gouges in place (you can see them in the plastic box at the top of the photo) but for added security I'll include a foam bar down the middle of the lid that will press down on the blades of the gouges when the lid is in place. The combination of the two, the magnets and the foam, should hold everything firmly in place.

2023-10-17

I whipped up a little box from plywood and glued the 3d-printed tray in place. The magnets hold the gouges pretty firmly, but nevertheless I think I'll include a foam pad in the lid to hold everything down.

Sketchbook Miscellany

 

I scribbled this some time back in 2017-18, and just got around to colouring it with Faber-Castell aquarelle pencils.

The others (below) I did relatively recently, while up in the Bay of Plenty.

Heavy Load

 

This one is finished now.

I've added a flat desaturated blue, which both pushes the raindrops into the background and disguises to a certain extent the faulty printing in the centre area.

Heavy Load

Linocut 150 x 150 mm

Flint water-based inks on unidentified heavy hot-press paper

Press Issue

 

My nipping press has a slight hollow in the middle of the plate, so that it doesn't print properly in that area. It's a very common issue with presses of this type, which aren't strictly speaking designed for printing. It's a persistent irritation.

I've been trying to figure out how to fix the problem. I thought at first a shaped caul might do the trick, but a wooden caul would very soon be dented by the pressure on the plates, which would lead to worse printing issues. Maybe a couple of progressively smaller thin felts might help.

Or, and this is the most likely reliable fix, I might just have to rub in that area with a burnisher before the paper comes off the block.

Linocut with actual lino

 

I found some actual real lino to make linocuts with. I've had it sitting there for years, and just found it when I was looking for something else entirely. So, I thought I would cut some lino with it.

This is the inked-up block, after its second inking. It's 150 x 150 mm.

Printing was not very successful at all.

The print on the left was printed in my nipping press, and then rubbed vigorously with a baren because I suspected that the ink transfer wasn't entirely successful, as indeed it was not.

The one on the right was run through my little roller press.

Neither of them are very good at all, due I think to a combination of factors.
My workroom was pretty cold, so the ink was very stiff. I rolled up the block with a very hard EssDee brayer, so the ink wasn't pushed down into any unevenness in the surface of the block, of which it seems there are many in this natural lino. The lino itself is very hard, so it doesn't squish at all. And the paper surface is also quite hard, so it doesn't conform well either.

I think the extra-hard brayers would be better suited to wood engraving, or maybe relief inking of intaglio plates, than to the sort of thing that I do. I prefer something with a bit more give in it.

Tree Plain Man

Tree Plain Man

Linocut, 107x147mm

The final print was done on Fabriano Tiepolo paper, which is a smooth-surfaced 290gsm stock, very well suited for printmaking.

If you compare this one with the test print below, which was done on ordinary desktop printer paper, you can see how much better the Fabriano paper takes up the ink.

Blind Stamping

I've included my seal stamp by Blind Stamping, in which the block is impressed into the paper without any ink.

It's different from watermarking, which you can also see an example of in the bottom right: a watermark is laid into the mesh that the wet pulp is laid on to make the sheet, and the resulting pattern shows in the finished paper.

Tree Plain Man test print

(90gsm printer paper)

I've experimented with the blocks a bit in this one.

The key block (the outlines) is in no way unusual. It was printed in burnt sienna.

The background (the sky and plane) had the foreground silhouettes cut out, and then the block was cut in half along the horizon line and inked up separately. I cut a horizon line before I decided to cut the block in half, which is why there's a white line there.

The sky block was inked with a red-yellow gradient, the plane with a simple solid chrome yellow.

The blue block was quite straightforward. I had to do quite a bit of cleaning of the block before printing to avoid printing-in, and I'll probably end up cutting all those open areas away completely.

The last block, with the colour areas for the man's face and trousers, was cut only locally where there was detail. I inked in the face area by dabbing ink on to the block with my finger, and the trouser area was inked up through a paper stencil.

2023-08-07 — The importance of paper

It comes as no surprise that paper quality affects print quality, but this I didn't expect to such a degree: the Winsor & Newton cartridge paper gives a perceptibly fuzzier and chalkier print than the Fabriano drawing paper. The difference is even more apparent in real life than in the photo.

The Fabriano is smoother and stiffer than the W&N for a start; I suspect that it's been sized and polished, so the ink sits more on the surface and sinks in less. That would certainly explain the crisper edges.