My finished books...
First, the publisher's board binding. John had several examples of this kind of binding from its heyday - beginning in the mid 1700s - when the structure became widely used in English binderies. Key features of the binding: it is sewn on recessed cords, and two are laced into the boards and the others are cut; the textblock is left untrimmed; the boards were almost always covered with blue or grey paper; paper spine pasted directly to the spine of the textblock; endpapers are pasted down with the book lying open.
A couple of the publisher's board binding models made by our class...
Second, a type of German case binding, or Bradel binding, also from the mid 1700s. This structure uses a molded spine wrapper attached to cover boards to create a case. We made a variant of this traditional German case binding with vellum for the spine. Other features: textblock is trimmed on all 3 sides and often speckled; sewn onto tapes using a French link then the tapes are removed; sewn endpapers; paste paper or marbled paper typically used on the covers.
A couple of the German case binding models made by others in my class...
Third, we made a single section book a la T. Harrison's 1947 article in Paper and Print. This structure was really interesting because even with only a few pages, the result was a rounded and backed textblock - not easy to achieve with a single section. This structure was presented as a solution for library binderies when a few sheets need to be bound for the stacks, this binding will allow the slim volume a bit more substance so it doesn't get lost on the shelf. The model that I made has a textblock of only four folios (I barely finished this book, so thank you, Jean for helping me with the leather spine on this one after the class was finished!)
My single-section book...
