Royal Road

Western Art Collector Article

A great two page article in the July issue of Western Art Collector on the Royal Road Book.


Read more at DCArtPress Publicity

Royal Road

Thirty two slip cases assembled and ready for the labels.

A jig was created so we could get a consistent placement for the labels.
The Slip Cases

Royal Road

Sewing the Signatures

Each signature has four sheets which are collated, folded and then holes punched for the hand sewing.

The signatures are sewn together in the Book block.

Royal Road - Old images of carving the blocks

A few pictures of the blocks being carved. All the printing is complete at this time but I thot some may enjoy seeing what went into creating each page.  

The spot woodblocks have 4 to 6 color runs while the full page woodblocks vary between 10 and 16 color runs.

 

Royal Road - Wrapping the covers

 

The covers for the book are wrapped in a brick red paper with the spine and corner tips wrapped with a decorative faux leather fabric.


Once the covers are complete, the next step is to mount the end sheet to the book block, all seven signatures sown and glued together.

Royal Road End Sheets

 The End Sheets for the book are a Japanese Paper from c1930 which I purchased from a dealer in Japan. The sheets were huge, 26x57, and needed to be trimmed to size.

The sheets had large chunks of "chiri" or bits of bark which gives it a wonderful character. Some of the chiri did have to be pulled out of the paper. The paper also needed to be backed with a second sheet as it was too thin to hold the signatures in place.

Royal Road

THE ROYAL ROAD

The pages are at last printed and now it's time to collate and double check the pagination. The pages have been gathered into seven signatures which will be sown and glued together.