Choice Magazine November 2011 issue

Wooden Board Bookbinding

Marcus and Marysa have just completed a collaborative veneered bookbinding project for a customer who wanted to have his book bound to evoke the era of Victorian boating on Henley-Upon-Thames.

The book has been pulled, re-sewn on tapes, guillotined, edge sprinkled, polished with bees wax, handsewn with silk headbands, with a leather spine.  The boards have been made from thin MDF chamfored to a fine edge and veneered with Mahogany.  The boards have recesses for the leather and the brass plaques.  The box was made out of a matching maroon book cloth and a recess made at the front of the box to complement the book.

When the box is opened, a padded lining is revealed which emulates that of a Henley Regatta stripped blazer.

Logbook for Sarissa 

Further to our binding the books for the Aglaia yacht pictured below, we have also made up two logbooks for the yacht Sarissa, also at Vitters Shipyard.  

The books were printed in-house on our own oki laser printer which takes custom sizes that are not available at commercial printers.  This books was A3 landscape section sewn with the paper being specially cut and hand sheet fed so that the pages could be folded and stitched the traditional way so that it would open flat after which the book was silver edge gilt on all three edges. 

More details of this yacht can be found on the Vitters website here

Logbook for Aglaia

A photo of Aglaia, the largest yacht yet built by the famous Vitters shipyard in Holland. Otter bookbinding made the log books for this beautiful boat. We are also making logbooks for another Vitters shipyard special yacht to be launched shortly, Sarissa.

Teaching at Hampton Court

Marysa will be teaching a tudor-style bookbinding workshop at Hampton Court Palace on July 19th.  If you would like to attend, no experience necessary, please click onto the Hampton Court Website for details here.

A 'New' Blocking Machine

We have just purchased a very special blocking machine (used for emobssing and printing gold and silver foil onto book covers). It is very large, cast-iron, and was built in Germany over 100 years ago. it took four strong men two hour to move it inside! Having this machine means that we can now do even the largest and most demanding blocking work in-house.

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen popped in.

On Friday 13th August 2010, we were visited by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen.  The show appeared on the 14th March 2011 and you can see us here

Karen, Laurence and Marysa

Otter Bookbinding Moves to New Premises!

After a couple of years when it was becoming increasingly clear that we were outgrowing our space we have now completed a move to our new premises.  We have not gone far and are just down the road from where we were, at Fairoaks Airport.  Everything went smoothly and we are now fully operational again.  Fairoaks is a pleasant place to visit and work.  The first class was held there on Saturday, and everyone agreed that the extra light and space made a big improvement!

Our new address is: Otter Bookbinding, Unit D7, Fairoaks Airport, Chobham, Woking, Surrey, GU24 8HX.

Our telephone number has stayed the same - it is 01932 845976.

We are still easily accessible from Woking, Addlestone, and junction 11 of the M25.

Wooden Bookbinding Workshop a Success

Our recent bookbinding workshop with Royston Hayward of the British Library was a great success. We learned to do an Ethiopian Codex style of binding, using Cedar Wood boards and plaited leather clasps, and by the end of the weekend everyone had a completed book to go home with.

Wooden Board Bookbinding

In a first for The Otter Bindery, Marysa de Veer has produced a fine wooden board binding in partnership with her partner Marcus Sly. Marcus is a cabinet maker, and together they have made a binding for The St Brides Notebook (printed by the Incline Press) using a combination of contemporary and traditional Coptic techniques.

The book is sewn on leather tapes using the link stitching method - otherwise known as French sewing. Because the spine is exposed, the book is able to lie flat at whichever point it is opened. The wooden boards have been prepared by chamfering the spine edge to take account of the swell of the book and thereby fit the book perfectly. The tapes are fed through sunken in channels in the wooden boards and are then fixed in place. The endpapers are made with green suede and Dutch recycled guilder notes. The wooden boards are made of quartersawn brown oak with a shellac finish.

For more pictures click here.

Crafts Beautiful Magazine

Crafts Beautiful Magazine July 2009 article:

OPEN AFTERNOON Saturday 1 August 2009 3.30 pm - 5 pm

Come and find out more about bookbinding, learn a little about our Saturday workshops, make a concertina binding for free.