Claire Ryan's Blog, page 7

September Giveaway Winner Annoucement

It’s the worst thing in the world when a binding fails. It happens every once in a while, when the materials I pick for covers or endpapers or glue turn out to be a bad choice. This belated announcement comes to you courtesy of some bad materials that just would not glue down properly, which resulted in me having to rebind a cover, scrap two entire text blocks of expensive parchment paper, and throw out umpteen test print pages of regular paper.

It’s also a pretty good feeling when a binding turns out well, and I think this one was a success. After all my parchment paper was ruined, I turned to my usual paper and printed out a half-size text block. Some nice red vinyl for the cover, yellow endpapers, and a thick red elastic cord with a clasp, and this giveaway copy of The Meldling is ready to go to the giveaway winner – Ty, in Utah! I’m also including a full size blue notebook as apologies for not being able to use parchment paper. This will go into the post on Tuesday, after Canadian Thanksgiving.

Thank you to everyone who signed up to my mailing list! Remember, just being subscribed means you get automatically entered in each monthly giveaway. I don’t always do really special copies like this one, but every one will be handmade with care.

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Quick Announcement: Etsy!

Okay, I opened an Etsy shop after I realized that I had several test copies and other random bindings just lying around, and after much prodding from friends. I also took it as an opportunity to list a few of my vintage books acquired on my travels.

Anyone in Vancouver can just contact me directly to buy a book, but for anyone else – to Etsy with you!

I’ll be adding various types of books up there, mostly copies of my own printed books depending on what kind of binding I’m trying this week. Bookbinding is ALL about experimentation, after all. Check out the discount section for cheaper copies that I’m getting rid of because they have some defect that’s unacceptable to me, the perfectionist.

Related Posts:

Did you know that I have a mailing list?
Further Adventures in Book Binding
Adventures in Bookbinding

The post Quick Announcement: Etsy! appeared first on Raynfall.

Bookbinding on a budget in Vancouver

I’m not sure if anyone is interested, but I thought I’d write this up for any other bookbinders or people who’d like to try their hand at this craft. Here’s where you can start learning bookbinding and where you can get your materials in Vancouver!

Warning! WALL OF TEXT INCOMING!

Learning How to Bind

First up: tutorials! The Sea Lemon Youtube channel is the best place to start for an absolute beginner. (Fun fact: I still do all my text blocks for case binding the way Jennifer does it in this video.) Try the Coptic binding first, it’s nice and simple.

Then check out the Bookbinding subreddit for more links and tutorials, and iBookbinding.com for articles and whatnot. You’ll also want to check out the local chapter of the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild for upcoming workshops. (These cost money, though.)

You’ll also see more tutorials and book arts on Pinterest, if you have an account there. Great place to get ideas.

Materials

So this is the big problem, in Vancouver anyway – there’s no single shop where you can get everything. Here’s where you can get each thing that you need to bind books, hopefully for not a huge amount of money:

Book board

Any good, thick cardboard will work, but if you need a cheap option, then head on over to Michaels and get some foam core board. It’s stupidly thick, and book board isn’t really supposed to be that thick, but if you’re just practicing, it’ll work fine.

For some reason, actual book board is hella tough to find in Vancouver at a reasonable price. I think Paper-Ya on Granville Island has some, because they stock a lot of Lineco products. Opus Art Supplies has mill board, which I have never used.

Personally, I go to Urban Source on Main St and clear them out of thick cardboard every once in a while. (Urban Source has a whole section where you just fill up a bag of stuff for a set price, kinda like all-you-can-eat art supplies.)

PVA Glue

Opus sells giant bottles of PVA glue, which I churn through like whoah. The only downside is that their version seems to dry faster than usual. They and Paper-Ya also have Lineco pH neutral PVA glue, which you should be using for archival stuff.

Paper for covers/endpapers

Paper-Ya has ALL the good stuff, especially marbled paper. It’s pricey as hell, so don’t use it for everyday binding. The papers there are $10 a sheet and up, usually.

DeSerres on Broadway is where it’s at if you need cheaper decorative paper. They’ll do some sheets for $3 to $5 if it’s on sale, and their selection is awesome!

For the exceptionally cheap option – wrapping paper. I am totally not kidding here. Nice wrapping paper can serve pretty well as cover paper. You just have to make sure you don’t get the really flimsy crap. I snagged a roll of recycled wrapping paper with a nice printed design on it for almost nothing, and it binds very well. The only thing you need to watch out for is how well it takes PVA glue, and bear in mind that it’ll tear in a heartbeat if you’re rough with it.

Urban Source also has some decorative paper, but they’re hit ‘n’ miss.

You don’t necessarily have to stick to actual decorative paper, though. I did some very nice binds using paper bags from a shop. Anything that’s big enough for the cover and can take PVA glue is fair game.

Glue Sticks

You wouldn’t think that these little things would be useful, and yet here we are. Glue sticks are great for all kinds of small fixes in bookbinding where PVA would be too messy, and they work great on cover paper that becomes too soggy or wrinkled with PVA. I use them on the book boards of covers that are destined for wrapping paper, and then switch to PVA for the edges that will be covered by the endpapers.

DeSerres has some chunky own-brand glue sticks for a couple of dollars, or you can check out any craft store for the usual Pritt-Stick variety.

Paper for the inside/the text block

So Urban Source doesn’t do that well on decorative paper, but oh man, it’s fantastic for stacks of paper in a variety of colours. Wander in there, pick up the $20 all-you-can-eat bag, and fill that sucker with ALL THE PAPER. I have, no lie, a pile of paper in six different colours that’s seven inches thick sitting on my shelf right now, courtesy of Urban Source.

If you need regular printer paper, and you can’t find what you need in Urban Source, then whatever paper that’s currently on sale in Staples will work.

Speaking of which, if you want something more fancy, like parchment paper, Staples should have reams of ivory and cream parchment paper in stock, but it’s like $30. Not for everyday binding.

For any other kind of paper, like watercolour or sketching or whatever, Opus has the biggest selection.

Card Stock

Urban Source! Once again, the cheap option is the best. Urban Source has SO MUCH CARD STOCK in the all-you-can-eat section. It’s also got quite a lot of gloss card stock and larger sheets, so that should be your first port of call if you need any kind of card and you’re not bothered about the colour.

Outside of their all-you-can-eat section, they also have lots of folded card stock in lots of different colours at very reasonable prices. (I’m sure Paper-Ya and Opus have card stock, but I never shop for it there so eh.)

Ribbons

Ribbons for binding and bookmarks, and cords for binding or anything else really – Dressew on Hastings St has the best selection, and the size of that selection is breathtaking. They also have cheap coils of ribbon.

Urban Source is another good place to find super cheap ribbon, though I can’t remember seeing any in their all-you-can-eat section.

Leather

Get yourself over to Dressew again, and the leather bin just downstairs is what you’re looking for. Their leather remainders are pretty good. Urban Source also has pieces of leather for sale at very reasonable prices, and their all-you-can-eat section has a leather remainders bin of pieces that are really very small, but will do if you need leather for a strap or something.

Word to the wise, though – I’d only use this leather for non-adhesive binding on a cover. Anything that involves gluing the leather to something, go online and buy proper bookbinding leather.

Fake Leather

Dressew also has fake leather, like vinyl. This is much, much cheaper than the actual thing, and – bonus! – you can bind the covers with it without worrying about warping! It’ll take PVA glue easily. All you need to do is use binder clips or something to hold the edges in place while it sets.

Clasps

Dressew again – it has a giant selection of different clasps and closures, many of which will work nicely if you want to do something special. Many of them are SUPER cheap.

Which brings me on to…

Tools

Awls

I splurged on a proper Lineco medium-duty awl, but you can get very cheap ones in Canadian Tire. Opus and Paper-Ya also have Lineco awls. I use my awl for everything, so I don’t think you need to get different sizes.

Bone Folders

Again, Opus and Paper-Ya have Lineco bone folders. I don’t know where else you can get them, but honestly, any gently curved plastic implement will work fine – or even the back of a butter knife if you’re desperate. They’re pretty cheap anyway, and you only really need one.

Needles

Apparently there are special bookbinding needles out there, which I never really considered buying. I do all my sewing with curved quilting needles, or embroidery needles if I’m worried about putting extra holes in the paper, both of which I bought in Dressew for a couple of bucks. I also have some regular sewing needles, which work almost as well.

Thread

This is a bit of a bugbear for me. I have a giant industrial real of cotton thread, and I use a double-thickness of that for most of my binding. However! You’re supposed to use linen thread. The problem is that linen bookbinding thread is crazy-ass expensive and really only comes in white, whereas giant industrial reels of cotton thread can be acquired from Urban Source’s all-you-can-eat section. Michaels also carries bumper packs of embroidery thread in every possible colour for when I want to do any exposed spine stuff, like Coptic stitching.

The tradeoff is that cotton is weaker than linen, obviously enough. But there aren’t any hard and fast rules with this. Dig around in Dressew for cheap thread, practice, and if you want to do something that needs to last a hundred years, head over to Opus or Paper-Ya for the linen stuff.

Wax

You’re supposed to use beeswax on the thread before sewing. This stops the thread from getting too frayed and fluffy while you sew – all that friction against the paper does horrible stuff to the fibers, which can lead to the thread breaking. However… I don’t do this. One reason is that I keep the working length of the thread relatively short, like enough to do three or four signatures at a time, so I don’t need to worry about it fraying. I’m also using a thicker needle, going through holes in 20g paper, where the sides of each hole are wide enough to allow the cotton thread to move just enough that there’s less pressure and friction on it in the process.

My thread still snarls up some of the time, and I will still snap the thread about once every three books, but them’s the breaks. Binding with waxed thread just annoys me for whatever reason.

Anyway! Dressew has these little cheap doodads for waxing thread, though I don’t think they have beeswax in them. It’s some kind of flaky white wax. Opus has actual blocks of beeswax. Both should work fine if you want to wax your thread.

Blades

ARGH. Argh argh argh. This is SO GODDAMN ANNOYING. There is really nowhere you can get reasonably priced cutting blades. I have a bunch of X-acto knives, a Stanley knife that I keep blunting, and two rotary cutters, one of which I snagged in Urban Source for $3 in a moment of extreme luck.

Opus has the best selection of craft knives, and Canadian Tire just has a whole ton of knives of all kinds, but the best thing you can do is go anywhere and get a cheap Stanley knife with a snap-off blade, because it WILL get blunted to shit once you start cutting book board or foam core with it.

Rotary cutters are awesome, by the way, but any of them actually worth having are expensive.

Guillotines

Okay, there isn’t anything you can do with a guillotine that you can’t do with a Stanley knife, but if you have to have one, Staples has a selection that are pretty expensive. Oh and forget about cutting stacks of anything with them, most can only do like fifteen sheets at a time.

Cutting Boards

You want a self-healing one, and size isn’t too important. I get almost everything done on a 12 x 18 inch board, and I have a small crappy one I use for punching holes with the awl. Opus and Michaels have them.

Brushes

These are for applying the PVA glue, and really any cheap paintbrush will do fine. I use foam brushes that I think we got in Michaels for less than a dollar, and they work okay.

Rulers

You need a metal ruler. Opus has lots of them. I would not recommend skimping out on this, because the ruler is generally what you’ll be using to keep your hand safe while you’re cutting out book board. I have a 12 inch metal ruler, and I’m probably going to upgrade it soon to something with a guard on it.

Other Weird Stuff

So this isn’t really the end, because there’s lots of other stuff you can use for bookbinding. I’ve picked up all kinds of things, like thin pieces of wood, art prints, foil paper, stick-on plastic jewels, glitter, hemp cord, beads, and even pieces of maps. I personally like to try everything and anything to see what works in a bind and what doesn’t.

Sometimes I just go into Urban Source, pick up a bag, and start looking for inspiration! I’ve bound books using wallpaper samples and shoelace cord at this point. Nothing should be off-limits, and the more you do it, the more you learn about it.

Let me know in the comments if you’ve got any specific questions about where to find stuff. Happy binding!

 

Related Posts:

Giveaway Madness
How I Make My Books
The Marbling Experiment
My first handbound book

The post Bookbinding on a budget in Vancouver appeared first on Raynfall.

Did you know that I have a mailing list?

I totally have a mailing list. It is a shiny list, which is unfortunately lacking in subscribers right now. This makes me sad!

I give away books on this mailing list once a month, as you well know. At midnight on September 30th, anyone who’s signed up to the list will be put into a raffle for a handbound copy of The Meldling.

There is no other way to get a print copy of The Meldling! I will send a copy ANYWHERE in the world if you win it from the mailing list. And the best thing is that the mailing list is only used for New Releases and direct emails in the case of you winning a giveaway.

I take my responsibility with email addresses seriously, dammit.

So here’s the deal, my friends. For this one copy, I’ll do something extra-special. I’ll case-bind it on ivory parchment paper, with some very nice white pleather on the cover, and add a clasp and ribbon. Just for you, the first people who I may count as *gasp* fans.

Fans.

And of course, you’ll know all about the next in the series as soon as I finish it. How about that? (FYI: The Nameless Knight will be released late this year or early next year! Woot!)

Here’s the big mailing list link. CLICK IT NOW. IT CALLS TO YOU.

The Mailing List
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How I Make My Books
Giveaway Madness
The Evolution of the Cover
Cover Reveal: The Meldling
Would you like to choose what I write?

The post Did you know that I have a mailing list? appeared first on Raynfall.

How I Make My Books

Ever wondered how I create my handbound books? Well, I wrote up a long post for Dianne over at Tome Tender blog all about it, with pictures!

Now you can win the book I made while writing that blog post.

Check out the album below, and go read the post on Tome Tender!

Related Posts:

Giveaway Madness
Cover Reveal: The Meldling
Rebinding Shakespeare
The Evolution of the Cover
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The post How I Make My Books appeared first on Raynfall.

Fifty Shades Might Have Been Good

Well, I can’t read Fifty Shades of Gray. I doubt I’d manage to get through the first chapter, seeing as I couldn’t get through even the first Twilight book. Therefore, I am experiencing it the only way possible: by listening to Mark Oshiro read it, and watching his head explode every five minutes.

Everything about the series is still as bankrupt as ever. And yet, I’m seeing the glimmers of what might have been some worthy ideas, buried under layers of total bullshit, bad porn, and some of the worst prose ever penned by a human with working fingers. Don’t get me wrong – I’m sure it was accidental, and my opinion of E.L. James is still pretty low, but it’s there.

There are few common threads running through the first book.

Ana is astonishingly immature, ignorant, and outright antagonistic towards Christian.

Christian is highly abusive, both mentally and physically, to Ana, as well as being controlling and completely lacking in any kind of respect for her as a person.

Ana talks like a fucking teenager, and it gives me the kind of rage that could set every copy of this horrible book from here to Jupiter on fire.

Christian doesn’t have a goddamn clue what BDSM is. E.L. James doesn’t have a goddamn clue what BDSM is. But that doesn’t stop him/her shoving a metric ton of irrational, hateful rhetoric about BDSM at the reader.

Whenever Ana brings up some of her very valid concerns. Christian uses her newfound libido to completely derail her attempt to discuss them.

It’s fan fiction. By Odin and all His Ravens, it is SO VERY fan fiction. Damn near everything that happens in this book, from start to finish, is because it’s fan fiction and fan fiction almost demands certain tropes. There is no actual plot here, just a series of fan fiction chapters loosely strung together.

The sex is purple prose dogshit. (I feel completely justified in writing that sentence.) Speaking as someone who has read more than one romance book, and a not inconsiderable amount of fan fiction porn-without-the-vaguest-semblance-of-plot, I can say with some authority that the sex in Fifty Shades of Gray is awful. It’s mechanical, at best; lacking almost every scrap of true human feeling, and used as a club to beat the reader into submission. I am not kidding when I say that I have read better sex between imaginary tentacle monsters, if only because imaginary tentacle monsters are not afraid to call their goddamn genitals by their actual names, and not ‘DOWN THERE’.

Towards the end of the book, there’s a sex scene in almost every chapter, and it’s always the same inane scene played out: Ana and Christian argue about something, then they’re both overtaken by animal lust and they fuck as if self-control is something that they left in their other pants. It is so, SO boring. SO BORING. E.L. James tries to mix it up with different positions, activities or kinks, but she can’t hide the fact that these two characters have nothing in common other than their libidos.

And so on and so forth, but I think if I write any more about what’s wrong with this book, I’ll just put myself into a bad mood for the rest of the year.

But what if Fifty Shades was good?

I don’t even know how to describe this.

Fifty Shades of Gray might have been a good series. There’s a faint outline of what might have been, and I think that outline describes a very different book than the dross we’re stuck with. So let’s delve into some… hypotheticals, for now.

Christian is a survivor of childhood abuse. He embarked on an ill-fated affair with Elena when he was a teenager, who most certainly took advantage of him instead of getting him into therapy, but that’s all ancient history. His coping mechanism was to forgive and forget, because her actions did help him to deal with his trauma in some way even if they were wrong. Besides, their relationship is complicated, and he’s never really stopped needing her. He flirts with the BDSM lifestyle without really understanding it, believing himself to be too broken for a normal relationship, but also being unable to maintain a respectful kink relationship.

Ana’s been sheltered her whole life, and never believed herself to be a sexual creature. She’s ignored her sexual side for years, all through college – but now, on the cusp of her finally stepping out into the world, she finally meets someone who truly threatens the safe little bubble she’s been living in. It’s terrifying, but intriguing, and she doesn’t push him away.

Christian is drawn to Ana in a way that he has never been to any other woman. Most other women have been scared away because he unsettles them, but she has a core of innocence about her – a certain willingness to believe the best of him, in spite of the red flags. She should run, like the others, when he makes a few clumsy and horribly stalker-ish motions to get closer to her, but she doesn’t. She actually finds him fascinating enough to eventually fall in love with him. The chemistry between them is frightening, and he starts to believe that she might be the redemption he’s been searching for.

But Christian doesn’t know how to have a regular relationship, and Ana has no experience. All he can do is try to connect with her through the sham of BDSM he’s constructed for himself, and she can’t process how he has been damaged by abuse, or separate it from his kinks. Their conflicts all stem from their inability to behave like normal people in a normal relationship, or to recognize when the stuff they do is very messed up (especially in Christian’s case).

The story themes revolve around the evolution of each character, and how they help each other in their individual process. Christian lets Ana into his inner life, and with her love and more therapy, he finally lets go of his trauma and with it his need to engage in fake BDSM. Ana is challenged and brought out of her shell by Christian, and gains insight, self-confidence and wisdom through her relationship with him.

The horrible thing is that I think E.L. James was going for something like this. She was definitely invoking the ‘healing your man with the force of your love’ trope with Ana. But the book is crippled – absolutely crippled – by the need to include so many sex scenes as per the norm for fan fiction, the author’s utter inability to tackle such complex themes, and her complete ignorance of the nature of kink. Then she threw in the billionaire nonsense because everyone else was doing it, and the vastly unrealistic sex because fan fiction is nothing if not completely over the top, while her own actual skill with writing is woefully under-developed. What we’re left with is the gigantic hot mess that is Fifty Shades of Gray.

What might have been, my friends. It could have been a gem; an honest, deep examination of the nature of one’s sexuality, and how it’s shaped by history and current events. It might have been amazing.

Related Posts:

Fifty Shades of Crap
It’s Valentine’s Day and I Can’t Even

The post Fifty Shades Might Have Been Good appeared first on Raynfall.

Giveaway Madness

Whew…

I’ve been bookbinding ever since getting back from Ireland. I have so much to do! I had a LibraryThing giveaway finish at the same time as another giveaway was planned for the TomeTender blog (hi Dianne!) so my print editions are in demand.

I should point out that I’ll be doing a monthly giveaway of one print edition, starting in October, for subscribers to my mailing list. If you really want a nice, handbound copy of The Meldling, go sign up now! There aren’t many subscribers yet, so you’ve got a good chance of getting one.

(Anyone who’s already been promised a book – don’t worry, I’m making a copy specially for you!)

I’ve been running out of materials, it’s getting so busy. Thankfully I have a large supply of book board, but I’m almost out of decorative paper for the covers, and I need another whole box of paper for the text blocks. I’ve also blunted every good cutting knife I own, along with my one and only rotary cutter.

That’s another thing they never tell you about bookbinding: I’m constantly looking for new blades at this point. And I long – oh, how I long – for a proper book press and sewing frame. I should just make an Amazon wishlist at this point, and see if I can get stuff on sale. At the very least, I should see about getting another rotary cutter, perhaps with good titanium blades? A Reddit user on /r/bookbinding pointed me towards kiridashi knives, which apparently come sharp enough to shave with.

I’m not sure yet. Top priority is to get more paper. I did another marbling experiment with oil paints, which turned out to be… rather disappointing. Possibly this was due to the oil paints I used being very cheap and crap. Carrigheen (which is used as the size to float the ink for marbling) is CRAZY expensive, however, so I may just have to shelve the marbling idea for my book endpapers and buy already marbled paper instead.

Busy busy… And I still need to get back in the salle. I miss my longsword drills.

Related Posts:

Rebinding Shakespeare
The Marbling Experiment
Cover Reveal: The Meldling
My first handbound book
New WordPress Theme, Woo! Also, News.

The post Giveaway Madness appeared first on Raynfall.

The Smoking Crater that is the Hugos

As I was kicked awake by my daughter yesterday morning around 6am, I had the delightful experience of getting the results of the Hugos live from the other side of the Atlantic. After the various Puppies-related shenanigans going on, I expect a lot of people were waiting anxiously to find out what the verdict would be.

I wrote a little bit before about the Hugos and the Puppies. I will amend some of my thoughts as follows:

Larry Correia started this nonsense. George R.R. Martin showed that there was no historical political bias in the Hugo Awards, so all the bleating about groupthink and message-fiction getting the nod over better books/stories is wrong. It looks very much like Correia got butthurt that he lost a Hugo to someone else, and rather than do like the rest of us and suck it up, he’s decided that there’s some vast political conspiracy going on. Grab your tinfoil hats, people…

I cannot for the life of me figure out why the hell him and Brad Torgersen care so much about the Hugos, either way. They’re a popularity contest decided by a bunch of convention-goers, for Odin’s sake. There’s no cash award. A Hugo is a pat on the head from people who probably lean left and liberal, and Correia et al. are actually getting their knickers in a twist over how, when faced with a line-up of books/authors of equal quality, such people are more likely to pick a book/author that leans left and liberal. It’s like getting annoyed because English tea sells better than American coffee in England.

But I digress.

Regardless of why they started it initially, Correia’s point was that anyone and their dog (HAH) could rig the Hugo nominations. And also this:

I said that if authors with “unapproved” politics were to get nominations, the quality of the work would be irrelevant, and the insider cliques would do everything in their power to sabotage that person. Again, I was called a liar, so I set out to prove my point.

For the record, I think (like GRRM) that the Hugos were politically neutral. Still, Correia went out and set up the first Sad Puppies slate to get more of the ‘right kind’ of work into the Hugos, and rig the nominations in the process. He succeeded beyond the dreams of mortal men, and the Hugos nominations in most categories this year were dominated by the Sad Puppies.

And then the rest of fandom who care far too much about the Hugos collectively lost their shit and started throwing shade everywhere.

I’m not going to get into whether anyone involved in this is an evil mastermind out to destroy sci-fi and fantasy as we know it, for the same reason that I don’t get into debates about whether the Pope is really a velociraptor in disguise. (I will say, however, that my opinion of the Rabid Puppies remains unchanged and Vox Day can fuck right off.) But Correia was right. The Hugos could be rigged by a concussed duckling with an internet connection, and the reaction of his opponents was to double-down and prove, beyond a doubt, that quality meant nothing if they didn’t like how the works got onto the ballot. The slates dominated by the Puppies got sabotaged by ‘No Award’ because a lot of Hugo voters decided that the Puppies were mean-spirited dicks who needed to be punished, not because they thought everything on the ballots was unworthy of an award.

Both sides are now calling this a win. The non-Puppies are happy that the Puppies were denied all their sweet, tasty silver rockets, and the Puppies are pleased that they proved that politics can trump quality. I’m going to call it what it actually is: a fiasco that too many idiots are taking seriously, and in which everyone loses.

The Hugos are defunct no matter what happens; all their pretensions of fairly representing the whole of SFF are dead and buried in the compost heap of history. (I never really had any illusions about this, sitting as I do in self-published exile. I’ll sprout wings and fly to Jupiter before anything I write earns a Hugo, and I have never once heard of any self-published work winning one.) The tinfoil-hat-wearing Puppies are now reviled, whether deserved or not, across much of fandom. Next year, the Hugos are going to turn into a cyclone of asshattery the like of which will put this year’s awards to shame, and the Puppies are going to be blamed to hell and back for it. Good job, guys, hope that particular hill was worth dying on.

Once again, this is why I like to sit out here with the rest of the indie crowd. By and large, we don’t have to deal with this level of stupid. The only awards that count are the monthly sales figures.

(It was still awesome that Julie Dillon got Best Professional Artist. Regardless of what I think of the Hugos in general, her art is simply sublime.)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have the second book of a trilogy to write. I can’t be having with all this silliness.

Related Posts:

Lying Down with Dogs

The post The Smoking Crater that is the Hugos appeared first on Raynfall.

The Family Sword

Time to show off something very interesting – my family sword! There’s a story to go with the sword, but as to the exact provenance of it – no one really knows. This is basically the result of my research, based on info gleaned from Google, what my father knows about it, and some help from swordforum.com.

In 1924, the Irish Army started using the first Irish Army Officer’s Pattern Swords, made by Wilkinsons in London. Here’s the 1920s basic hilt design, and the 1926 etching design used by Wilkinson (provided by Robert Wilkinson-Latham from swordforum.com, from this thread)

Hilt design on which the Irish Pattern Officer’s Sword is based – note the badge is not exactly the same
The etched Celtic pattern used by Wilkinsons Sword by 1926

In the 1920s and 1930s, Irish Army officers had to buy their own swords, and frequently had to give them back after they left the Army, so there are not many of them around.

From my dad: the sword was one of twelve that were made for the honour guard who served at Michael Collins’ funeral in 1922. According to the story, the original owner was one of the first officers of the Irish Free State, and he was a member of the guard. So this sword was one of the first swords made for the Irish Free State, and it was likely made in 1923-1924, before the 1926 version was made for the Army by Wilkinsons. These swords were made with black scabbards, instead of the usual brown, in honour of Michael Collins.

The stamp on the sword hilt says “H PROVED”, which would be consistent with the marks for Hawkes Military Outfitters in London. They got their blades from Wilkinsons.

The etched design is very, very slightly different on the sword than the one you see above. The 1926 design has also got the Wilkinsons mark, which wouldn’t have been placed on the swords initially (the British government put pressure on Wilkinsons not to, for political reasons, as the Irish Free State had just been established).

Anyway – the original owner lived in or near Buttevant in Cork, where one branch of my family is from. My father’s uncle, Cornelius O’ Connor, went into the Irish Army – best estimate is that this would have been in 1940 – and the man who originally carried the sword became his mentor, then gave it to him because he needed an officer’s sword at the time. Then when Cornelius died, he left the sword to my father, and it’s been my family’s sword ever since.

It’s in very good condition, considering its age. The leather is still flexible and tough, and I feel like I could strap it on and go fencing with it if I felt like it. It’s a little heavier than a 16th century Italian rapier, so I would put it at about 3.5lbs. It has no edge, but it’s got a very sharp point!

The blade is covered in grease to protect it. It has a few spots of rust, but otherwise looks pretty good. The leather is very worn – apparently the original owner also had a Sam Browne belt to go along with the sword frog, but it’s since been lost. The end of the scabbard is very worn and torn, unfortunately. There is also a sword knot that should hang from the hilt, but it’s come off the leather wrapping. Several swords of this kind have come up at auction, but they’re known to be pretty rare. This one is the only one I’ve ever seen that also has a black scabbard.

So there you have it. There’s no way to prove any of the story, so it remains an interesting anecdote at best, but the sword itself is a very interesting and well-preserved artifact of Irish history – one that I would be glad to carry into battle.

Major thanks to swordforum.com and the very knowledgeable people there who helped me.

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Rebinding Shakespeare

My friend Alejandra gave me a new project to work on last week. I had the challenge of rebinding a copy of Much Ado About Nothing that was published in 1901! This frail little book had the covers falling off and half the signatures falling out, and it was in serious need of TLC.

Granted, I’m not a professional book-binder, but Alejandra simply wanted it to be readable again. Still, I’m really grateful that she gave me the opportunity to practice my skills on such an old manuscript.

Unfortunately I didn’t take any ‘before’ pictures!

The Process

The spine was gone. Not falling off, not beyond repair – just gone. Probably lost somewhere, I would guess. All I had to work with was the text block and the very battered red covers.

The first thing to do was cut the covers off the text block, which was easy enough. Then I had to look at the spine. The book spine, for most case-bound books that I get my hands on, is kettle-sewn and then glued with muslin for extra reinforcement. I prefer to use Coptic stitching instead because it’s stronger and allows the book to be opened flat. (Except for Raynfall Editions. They have to be kettle-stitched because of how they’re bound directly onto the spine.)

So, minus covers, I then looked at the text block. The glue was ancient and crumbling, and the first couple of signatures were falling out. I decided to separate all the signatures and strip off all the glue, and re-sew them back together with new thread.

In retrospect, this wouldn’t be a good idea for a very old book. These signatures were damaged anyway, and they were damaged a little more by being separated. Once I got down to the signatures alone, a number of the bifolia had large holes from where the thread had been pulled away. The paper in each actual page was fine and sturdy, but at the fold, it tended to crumble. Next time, if the text block is more or less in one piece, I’ll sew the loose signatures back onto the original thread and just replace the glue.

Anyway! With all the signatures separated and in order, I re-sewed them into a new text block. The spine got a layer of PVA glue, and a strip of muslin for strength, and then a strip of parchment paper to protect it. I added parchment endpapers as well. (Sometimes I use card stock, if I think it’s needed, but this book was pretty small and I didn’t want to bulk it up any more than I needed to.)

With the text block ready to go, I looked at the covers. They were very tattered, but the book board was fine, so I could reuse them. I cut away any hanging bits of paper and thread, and cut a new spine out of my own stock of board. Then I measured out everything on a sheet of decorative paper, and glued the boards down with the right spacing. After that, it was just a matter of folding over the edges of the paper, and the new cover was ready to go.

The last thing to do was glue the textblock into the cover, and use my bone folder to smooth out any air bubbles. Then it spent a night in my book press.

The Result

And here we are: the rebound Shakespeare! Alejandra was very happy with it. The book is very solid now, and should provide many more years of reading.

 

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