At Praxis Bookbindery hands, experienced by years of training, provide the necessary care to books and documents in need of restoration or conservation. Materials received at Praxis Bindery are carefully inspected and the options for restoration or conservation are thoroughly discussed with the client. A course of treatment can then be chosen and implemented. Using high-quality, archival materials and a variety of possible treatments the item can be conserved [chemically and physically stabilized to allow safe handling], or it can be restored [stabilizing as with conservation, while paying particular attention to the importance of retaining much of the item’s original appearance].

Repairs are made in a manner sympathetic to the period and style of the original item. Keeping repairs minimal is the preferred approach, along with retaining as much of the original materials as is structurally sound. This may include repair of the textpaper as well as repair to the covers whether paper, cloth, leather or parchment. Corners and headcaps may be repaired. 

When necessary extensive repairs can be made including rebuilding the pages and gatherings, resewing of the textblock, rebacking the original covers with new materials blended to visually stand back from the original materials. A last case scenario is rebinding the repaired pages into a new binding that is a pastiche of the original.

Take a short pictorial tour of repairing an eighteen century book in the photos below.