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Writing in a book from Renaissance Art is like taking a step back in time. All of the elements that go into hand making your book, right down to the finishing details of our unique hand stitching and flat braided wrap, as well as the lush 100% cotton rag paper, will make your experience unique. | | Never write in an ordinary book again. |
Leather: The thickness of leather is measured by its weight in ounces. For example, belt leather will range from 7or 8 ounces to 10 ounces (if it is very thick) and has a very stiff temper. The leather on your sofa or car seat is about 3-3-1/2 ounces with a very soft temper. The leather we use for our book covers is about 5-5-1/2 ounces with a soft temper. It has some pebble grain to it and a wonderful pull up effect. Pull up is the slight discoloration you get when you bend the leather, which gives the leather cover a wonderful rustic look over time and contributes to its depth and character. A little rubbing will take out any scratches and restore the leather to its original state. Our preference with our own personal books, however, is to leave all those character-building traits in the leather. | | Thread and Cord: We hand-sew our products using needles and thread. In some cases, we use as many as eight needles to sew one book. The 5-ply waxed linen thread used to sew our books is extremely tough and difficult to break. We use up to six threads in the sewing of our books. The thread is also naturally UV resistant so it will not weaken or discolor if left in the sunlight. Each of the wrap-around ties is hand-braided, using 1mm waxed cotton cord in most books. Paper: We use two different papers in most of our our books. Arches Text Wove is the paper of choice for all of our writing and sketching journals. We choose this paper because of the very high quality associated with the Arches name and because it is usually the paper of choice among artists. Arches Text Wove is 100% cotton rag, acid-free and far superior to recycled paper. For the technical, it has a “wove” pattern and a slight amount of tooth, is 120 gsm in weight and is moderately sized. For the not so technical, it means that you are going to completely love writing, drawing, sketching, doing light water coloring and just about anything on this paper. Arches paper is one of the best. | |  | | | We use Fabriano Murillo for our photo albums. It is the stiffest acid-free black paper available on the market today. Why is stiffer better? When you turn the pages in your album, the pictures will not fall out of their photo corners. We also include a box of 250 clear archival photo corners with every album. Our corners are professional corners that cannot be found in most stores – they are simply the best! |
Templates: To make our books, we start with a template. Our templates for cutting the leather are all made from binder’s board. This is one reason we can be so flexible in accommodating your custom orders.
Covers: Our leather comes to us in 20-30 square foot hides. We cut all of our covers individually by hand with a utility knife, using a template. This helps us to accommodate special requests, such as including a brand on a book or cutting from a more character-filled place on the leather hide. With the template still in place, we mark the leather for punching later on.
Punching: Once cut, the cover is punched by hand with an awl. This way, we can easily sew it up after the paper insides have been prepared. | |  | |  | |
The Insides: Our paper comes to us in big sheets, usually about 26x40 inches. Instead of cutting them with a hydraulic paper cutter, we hand-tear every sheet. This greatly enhances the rustic look and feel of our books as well as their handmade quality.
Sewing: Finally, with the end papers chosen and the inside papers torn and folded into signatures, all we need to do before sewing is punch holes into the individual signatures. We use a template for this as well so that the holes in the paper match up with the holes in the leather. | | | Next, we thread our needles and are ready to sew. You will not find our stitching designs anywhere else – they are unique to Renaissance Art and are creative, good-looking and functional. We use up to 6 threads and up to 8 needles to stitch a single book. Our unique hand stitching allows our books to lay completely flat when open. Personally, we like to fold our book completely over on itself when using it. Either way makes writing or drawing in them easy and enjoyable. | |
The Braid: To finish our books, we hand-braid a cord to wrap around each book. This helps to hold any loose extras that you might like to put in your book. We make sure that each cord is braided flat, not twisted.
Yes, it does take more time to completely hand-make your book from beginning to end: to stitch the way we do, to hand braid the wrap cord, to hand-tear all the paper, to cut the leather and punch the covers and paper by hand. But we believe that you, the customer, is looking for something different and unique…that you want an extraordinary book unlike anything else out there.
Never Write in an Ordinary Book Again
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| ©2010 Renaissance Art |
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