Making Tools with Shanna Leino

I just spent nearly 12 days at Paper and Book Intensive without posting to my blog even once. My reliability decreases every year. But do not despair, I intend to share lots of information about PBI now that I am back home. One of the classes I was taking, was tool making with Shanna Leino. My first introduction to tool making! Shanna makes stunning tools, both bone and steel. Check out her tools (and her books too) at www.shannaleino.com. Here is Shanna, cutting something in class last week.

We were using elk bones to make the bone folders. The bones have to be chopped up a bit, into long narrow slabs. Shanna had a box full of bone slabs that we could pick through and select ones that appealed to us for our own tools.

Starting with a hatchet to hack away any large pieces, then using rasps and files, the slabs can be shaped and refined into useable tools. Here are the first bone tools that I started - nearly finished:

After all the rasping and filing, the bone tools were also decorated and then sanded and polished. By the end of the session, I made these four bone tools and one chunky bone needle.

Shanna also had us make a steel tool. Starting with a plain steel rod, the ends were shaped and then the rod was decorated. We also tempered the steel to make it hard and durable (red hot into water - my first taste of blacksmithing). These kinds of tools can have different shapes on the points like hearts or squares or stars etc. After a false start, the one I made turned into a simple round point, with some decoration on the rod. The little brass star in this photo has been punched with my newly made tool.

Thanks to Shanna and PBI, now I have this selection of beautiful new tools to use. And as Fran so wisely pointed out, they fit my hands because my hands made them.

The other classes at PBI

Sadly, one cannot attend all the classes offered during PBI. One has to settle for three. But one does have the opportunity to fondle and drool over the work done in those other classes. Although excessive drooling is frowned upon.

There was a wide range of classes offered. People were folding papers, studying pigments, making pastels, making paper, marbling, making conservation boxes, paring leather, sewing endbands, sanding and drilling, and just generally being very creative.

First coveted class, was Hedi Kyle's paper folding. A few samples from the class:


Luckily, the people who did take this class were very generous to share some of their new folding skills afterwards so I did pick up a few new tricks.

Another coveted class, Shanna Leino's Armenian binding. Delicious samples:


She also shared some info with the rest of us who were unable to be in her class, so I have some notes on this binding...must try it soon.

And holy papermaking! Andrea Peterson's papermaking class did such amazing things with pulp!


And in the end, I think everyone wishes they had been in Dolph Smith's class. They produced fabulous works of art in this class - the books were difficult to photograph because they were very sculptural and multi-dimensional, but here's a couple:


Obviously, a good time was had by all!