******NOTE******* I posted these 3 books in other forums already so thats why I am posting them here all at once.


I decided that I would come out of my shell a little more and post complete restorations with multiple experiments performed on them. Up to now I have for the most part tried to post my best but here you will get to see the good, the bad, and the ugly (mostly ugly for now) as I learn and practice. This forum has been an invaluable resource and I appreciate everyone's feedback. I may not get it right away but I seem to eventually. Since allot of these books are beaters, you may not see everything worked on as it should, sometimes you will see less is more and other times the opposite as I experiment with every process I can wrap my brain around and afford the equipment.


Book #1

This book is a continuance from another topic about single staple books. I did not take as many before pics as I should have and I am working on that for future projects.

Here is what it looked like before I got started on it.


Cover was detached, lots of tears, tiny pieces missing and the ink needed allot.
My main goal was to get the front cover looking as good as I could.

Experiment 1 washing the cover

Washed in aqueous solution first. I forgot to try pre-treating the ball point pen mark darn it. doh!

After wash the whites still looked dirty so I washed in an non-aqueous wash .

Experiment 2 repairing the tears.

1st I sealed what I could with Methyl Cellulose then I used wheat paste and thin Japan paper to mend them all on the inside of the cover. On the outside to fill in the empty area's along the spine I used a paper paste made up of Cellulose powder and Methyl Cellulose.

Experiment 3 Color touch with Acrylics

I tried not to overdo it but still do enough that it would look allot better. I took an angle shot so that you can see my CT doesn't have a dull finish or a thick textured look.


Experiment 4 Press with SRPF

I only used 160 F and no humidity, cover was already humid from washing, mending and CT. No harm came to the CT.

Ok here are the results, remember I am trying to learn so it's not that great and I didn't pour over it that much. I am always too excited to get to the end and didn't go back and try to fix any mistakes.



I got some bleedthrough and the edge's where the tears were but thats it.

Book #2
Fantastic four #64

Ink removal
Dry cleaning
Pressing


Before Ink removal and Dry cleaning.


After:


The ink removal didn't go as good as I had hoped but every comic I try it on brings me closer to getting good.


Back before Dry cleaning:


and after:


Pressing:



This one is after shot. I forgot to take a before.










Thanks for checking out my work and your comments.

Less is more?

Although I enjoy a practice book where I can explore as much as possible, when it is a book I am serious about keeping in my collection I am employing the opposite. I am told that most conservators prefer less and most collectors prefer more and so far I haven't seen evidence to the contrary. To explore this theory further I again must subject you too my work and get some feedback on if the book deserved more or less work.

This book is one that I would like to find out from you all if I should have done more work on it, less or the amount I choose. I recognize that knowing what amount of work to do as is important as how its done.

For your consideration, Amazing Spiderman Annual #1. This book has allot of wear but the worst was the spine completely split and detached from the pages.

On Marvel annuals the cover is glued to the spine instead of stapled. Some of the cover at the spine is missing.

My goal is to re-attach the front and back cover and glue it back to the pages, dry clean, press and remove the ink. I regret the ink removal and won't be trying to remove ink from books I care about till I am happy with the process. I will not be covering that step here.

Ok here she is,


I told you she was pretty beat.

Here you can see the difference after I dry cleaned the cover.





2. Repair cover


Next I reattached the 2 piece of the cover.


here are some close ups.






So the first thing I did was to use glue A at the seam to make sure its aligned right and create a seal. you can see glue A as it goes down the seam .





After I sealed as much as I could, I proceeded to use glue B to lay down thin mending tissue about 1/4 in wide strips over the seam of inside the cover where it was split for strength. When applied it becomes transparent and can only be seen in the photos where I left some excess at the end.

I decided I was not going to do any piece fill.

3. Reattach cover to pages.




So now I used glue C to glue to cover back to the spine of the pages and the book can be handled safely now.


4. Press










I have found that the right combination of ingredients is key to a good pressing and I am getting close folks. I have talked to several pressers that claim they set their temp anywhere from 185 F to 220 F . When I first started pressing I did the same because I wasn't getting good results under 195 F.
I have discovered that I was doing it wrong and overcompensating with high heat.

Well, that's it all and I hope you enjoyed my little presentation.

Your craft is definately improving. Keep up the good work!

What do you use to apply the glue over the mending tissue? A brush?

Yeah, I'm impressed. You're definitely getting better at this!

Red

Yes, brushes are how I spread any of the glues. When I am sealing a tear I use a fine paint brush. I use a wide flat one for the tissue. My goal is to always make the tissue as invisible as possible and most times I cannot see it when its dry on white background.

Thanjks, I will be posting some tape removal real soon you may find interesting.

I'm curious about the consistancy of the glue. Is it thick and you have to spread it carefully, or very thin and it pretty much "soaks in" and self levels upon application?

The tear seal glue is thin and the tissue glue is thick and its up to me to level the thick glue out and remove any excess.

Book 4 Amazing Spiderman # 19



Work performed on book:

remove non original staples
Remove tape
Dry clean
Press























Isn't this sad? A perfectly good book ruined
with tape and not just the transparent kind.


Before I remove the tape which is only on the outside of cover (thank god)
I want to detach the cover from the pages so I don't get un-needed solvent
on the and create much more work. Since the tape covers the staples I will
have to open the prongs at the centerfold and them pull them out with the
cover.

But then I discover another roadblock.




















It wasn't bad enough that this book was taped without cause but
someone stapled two more staples right through the whole book.
I hope this was a child who did this because if an adult did it they
must have been out of their mind.





















I carefully remove the two staples so that I could get to the staples that
do belong opened.



















Here you see the cover off with one staple still stuck in there.
I was able to remove the bottom one since the non original staples
were very close to the original.






















Sigh, due to the tape not being transparent I couldn't really see
what I was doing and made a few mistakes. I would have preferred
no color loss and no tearing but I ended up with a little of both.























After I reattached the cover I dry cleaning the front and back.
If the after of the FC looks whiter that is because the solvent I
use on the tape also removes other oils and cleans the cover
without effecting the colors.





















In this pressing example you can see on the left Spidey has some
dings and creases and on the right most of them are completely gone.





















Here you can see the most of the overhang crease is gone.
I still need work in the department.
























Well thats it folks, let me know what you think.
All feedback is welcome, really.

A vast improvement from your previous work Mike.

Great job on the ASM 19. This is a wonderful example of how restoration can save a book. Eventually the tape would have eaten through the spine and rendered the book trash. Nice save. I'm surprised the tape didn't leave more staining than it did.

Glad you like it Marnin and Zip.

Book 5




It's Sunday again and time for a update on my progress.
Today I will be showing a pressed square bound annual .
It is one of my last challenges in pressing. Pressing an
annual presents unique obstacles that I don't face with
other comics. I have to be careful that I don't squish the spine
anymore than it already is , not have the staples pushing through
the cover more than before and get as much defects pressed
out as possible. getting all 3 at once isn't easy since too much
pressure, heat or humidity will cause staple or spine damage
and not enough won't get any results. I feel this book landed
on the slightly not enough side and I maybe could do better
with a 2nd pressing but I prefer to only press it one time and
be happy with that.

Silver Surfer #1





































































































































































I know the spine isn't perfectly flat and I didn't get out all the
dent's but I hope you agree that the book is better off after.





In case you are wondering if I will be showing more tape experiments, I have a stack of them and will be showing then ASAP.
Here is a sneak peek of a future book # .























Here you can see the first is before and the second is
after but 3 third is inspiration from what a little birdie
told me.



I want to get out all of the stain so this isn't finished yet.

Thanks for checking out this weeks addition.

Making headway on ink I think.

This is my 2nd attempt and hot of the press, juyst did it an hour ago. I will let you know when I get one completely clean.

I'm really surprised that the marker would come out that much. What solvent did you use?

Was it a bath and did it affect the sizing?

Yes, nice job Mike. Any idea about the origin of the ink stains?

I am glad you asked about a bath. It was a bath or what is called floating but I used organic solvents not water.

Water is now my last resort and sizing is one of several reasons why. Water changes the feel, texture and look of the book and although there are procedures to restore those characteristics it is a mess. Sizing, alkaline reserves, and drying all have to go right or its not the same any more. The only time I use water now is to deal with rust migration or previous water damage/staining.

Most organic compounds don’t affect the paper structure. So much so that when it’s dry it still has all the bends it original had. What is at risk is the cover inks. Comic book covers have the most sensitive ink structure so the wrong organic solvents on the wrong era of book will affect the colors in a bad way.

No I dont. The books are not mine and it is likely the owner bought them that way. You couldn't tell from this book but I will be posting other examples where it was a price tag that was writen on there. On this book I think someone tried to remove the price and notes.

Ok, thanks for the explanation Mike!

Book 7 More tape
Work done:
dry clean
remove tape and tape stains.
remove smoke stains
reattach front half of cover
press

I really enjoy removing tape. I feel like I am doing the
comic a favor. The adhesive is like a cancer for the
paper. Left in the paper eventually loses its bonds and
is no more. Less is still more so I try not to have to
do restore afterwards unless it looks necessary . On
book 7 it will be necessary to repair the tear or the
book will not be safe to handle as the piece is completely
detached from top left at the spine to the bottom right.
Let's have a look shall we?
Amazing Spiderman #3











You will notice a tideline on the after of back cover. This was due to a drying mistake of a tear repair.






































































Here I wanted to show what the staple placement
look like when I was done. I know it looks like one
is pushing through a little but thats how it was originally.




In the end I was not able to do much with the smoke damage.
I dont know what burned in the fire so it makes it really hard
to find a way to get it all off.

Book 6 Continued
I have already shown the results of the tape removal and polled to
see what restore should be done on it. The book is now finished
but I am disappointed in the results. If I didn't already start posting
this book I would have passed on posting it now. I am ok with the
tears around the edges and the centerfold. The spine tears and the
piece fill came out terrible IMO. I have been experimenting with a paper
paste and thought I could paste extra over the seam and it look natural
but I did the opposite. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

You have come a long way Mike! Your work has greatly improved!

Thanks guys for the encouragement. I hope to improve on piece fill really soon and won't stop till it looks natural and original.

Book #8
Creepy #27 A cover


Dry clean colored area's.
Press big ass book


So, I did not know you could dry clean a colored area on a cover without
removing ink until this last week. The first book wasn't documented so
this is my second try at it. I may have not completely removed all the
stains because I am still scared I will accidently remove color.
Reviewing these photos I noticed two spots on BC where it looks like the dirt was hiding a color chip and a CB along the spine.





Pressing a larger thicker book is a little more trickier and required
slightly different settings.
I only pressed the book once and would only press it more if I really
wanted to hammer those 3 NCB on the spine. This is my book so I
didn't feel the need to take it that far.
You can expect in the near future a crack, press and resub experiment
soon courtesy of Starbuck.

Jeez, when is this picture heavy topic going to change pages?

I am pushing this to the next page.

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