Juggling life, liberty and happiness

Cartigny, Jean de / Albertinus, Aegidius: Deß irrenden Ritters Raiß, der Welt Eitelkeit und den Weg zu der ewigen Seligkeit begreiffend, München 1594 [VD16 C 1215]
Nice depiction of very late period German clothing on pages 25 (linked above) and page 39.
(There might be more, but I didn't go through all 450 pages in the whole book)

Von Drien Christen: dem Römischen ... dem Bohemschen ... dem Thürckischen Christen, [Basel] [1523] [VD16 G 1216]
Really nice woodcuts showing miniatures of some Swiss fashions circa 1523.


Breviarium Salisburgense, [im Auftrag von Sigismund II. von Holneck, Erzbischof von Salzburg]. [I, 1-6 und II, 1-7], Bd.: 2,1/7, Nürnberg [ca. 1497] [BSB-Ink B-907 - GW 5444]
Beautiful tooling on this leather binding.

Today I went out to the workshop to work on the new bookbinding sewing frame I'm making. Using Arn's workshop would be a whole lot easier, however, I really need to learn to do this on my own, and its a super simple project... (Famous last words...)

Exhibit A - A detail scan of The Bookbinder from Jost Amman's "The Book of Trades", showing the details of the sewing frame, you can click on the picture to see it larger.


My plan is to make it out of poplar, pegged together. I think that the top frame part won't be pegged in, but rather sitting in mortises in the base but still loose enough to pull out when I need to break it down. The plan is for it to be 24" wide, 12" deep and about 26" from top to bottom. I really need the top part to break down for easy storage in my workroom closet. The top part of the frame looks to have a slot for the hooks that are holding the sewing cords. The hooks don't look like they hook over the bar, but rather through it. Not sure how I'm going to do this part yet... A drawing of a frame from the 1700's shows a slot cut in the top bar that the hooks go through. I think I'll need to ask a friend for help on this one.

Now, why I'm grumpy.

I go to cut the first board for the base....
The Ryobi sawsall only works for things that are nailed down, clamping doesn't work to keep the boards steady enough to be able to saw a straight line. So I used a handsaw, good thing my shoulder is feeling fine these days!

The work bench is so tall that I have to stand on a step stool just to be able to use it.

Then I go to drill a test hole for the dowel...
We have four drills, but no drill bits that I can find. I know he's got them hidden somewhere. I did find ONE drill bit in the package, I think its a size that should work to drill the holes for the pegs.
AND Of the drills that we have, I can only manage to open two of them to be able to get a drill bit in. No instructions to be found either. One of the drills doesn't work worth a damn, the other one is out of battery juice.


So, sum total I got done in two hours? Plans drawn out, workshop cleaned, *one* board cut, four drills tested.

I know, whine, whine whine.... at least I *have* a space to work.

Maybe I'll go work on making some veil pins... That doesn't require power tools!

I've been off on random searches today, and found this

The British Library Database of Bookbindings

You can do an advanced search or just browse through a random selection in the gallery. Lists some fun info including leather type of the binding and gives nice close-up views of the book bindings as well.