Condition Assessment: September 10, 2007
Treatment Completed: December 11, 2007
Conservator: Melissa Tedone
Instructor: Chela Metzger
Course: UT Austin, School of Information, Book Lab III, Fall 2007
Title: The Last of the Mohicans
Author: James Fenimore Cooper
Imprint: missing, but possibly, New York, W.A. Townsend and Co., 1859
Collation: viii (1) 10-520 p.
Format: 12 mo
Binding Dimenions (HxWxD): H 19.1  x  W 12.5  x  T 3.3  (cm)
Textblock Dimensions (HxWxD): H 18.4  x  W 12.2  x  T 3.0  (cm)
Owner/Custodian: personal collection

Treatment Objective
The goal of this treatment is to stabilize and rebind this special collections binding in a sympathetic manner, while exploring several potential treatment options. 

Description & Condition
Binding:
The binding is contemporary to the textblock and was originally a case binding.  The remaining back board is 2mm thick binders board covered in yellowish-brown, tanned sheepskin. 

The binding is in poor condition.  The front board and spine covering are missing.  The back board is mostly detached.  The remaining board is scarred, stained, and misshapen.  The upper corner of the remaining board is slightly bent.  The leather has peeled away from the corner, exposing the binders board, which is delaminating. 

Text block:
The textblock is printed in black printer’s ink on machine-made, wove paper. The sewing is two-on, supported by sawn-in cords.  The textblock has been consolidated with animal glue, and exhibits a moderate round and moderate shoulders.  The edges of the textblock have been marbled.  There are stiff-leaf, marbled endpapers at the back, which have torn along the fold-line of the marbled sheet.  There is no evidence of endbands. 

Both the sewing and adhesive consolidation of the textblock are failing. The front endpapers and title page are missing.  The paper is stiff, but not brittle.  The textblock is notably dirty and stained.  The textblock exhibits foxing throughout, and prominent tidelines in the final signature.  The marbling on the textblock edges is faded but still visible. 

Treatment Proposal
  1. Disbind.
  2. Surface clean.
  3. Wash (one-third of textblock).
  4. Bleach with NaBH4. (one signature).
  5. Resize with gelatin (one folio).
  6. Mending and guarding as needed.
  7. Complex guarding (one signature).
  8. Replace missing front, marbled endpapers.
  9. Resew (2-on, on single cord supports).
10. Humidify and flatten original back board.
11. Attach new cover with hollow tube and colormatched leather (re-use original back board).

Materials Used

• Calcium hydroxide
• Polyester sheets (Remay)
• Ethanol
• Gelatin 1% solution
• Sodium borohydride 1% solution
• 3-strand linen cord
• Irish linen thread
• Methyl cellulose (MC) 2.5% dispersed in hot then cold distilled water (Fisher 4000 cps.)
• Precipitated wheat starch paste mixed 1:4 with distilled water, cooked 20 minutes (Colophon)
• Lascaux 498HV (Talas)
• Elvace PVAc 45675 (polyvinyl acetate adhesive)
• Cotton textile
• Handmade Iowa lightweight, laid paper
• Machine-made lightweight Kozo (Hiromi)
• Usu mino long-fiber paper (Hiromi)
• Chochin long-fiber paper (Hiromi)
• 70# Mohawk machine-made paper
• 20 pt. lignin-free board
• Liquitex Professional Acrylics
• Calfskin leather
• Leather dye
• Cotton wadding
• Arced single line iron for blind tooling

Treatment Procedure (Actual Time: 63  hrs)

1. Mechanically removed residual animal glue from spine.
2. Disbound volume.
3. Washed final seven signatures (pp. 361-520) in two, 20-minute aqueous baths conditioned to pH 8.5-9.0 with calcium hydroxide. 
4. Air-dried washed folios on polyester (Remay) sheets on wire racks. 
5. Resized folio (pp.361/2-383/4) in 1% gelatin bath at starting temperature 55°C for 5 minutes, and air-dried on polyester (Holytex) sheet on wire rack.
6. Bleached final signature (pp. 507-520) in a 1% sodium borohydride (NaBH4) solution for 10-20 minutes, followed by rinsing for 10 minutes in an alkaline bath conditioned to pH 9.0 with calcium hydroxide.  The bleaching time for the four folios was varied, to compare the effect of length of time in bleaching solution.  The first (outer) folio was bleached for 20 minutes, the second folio for 10 minutes, the third folio for 10 minutes, and the fourth (inner) folio for 15 minutes. 
7. Rebuilt spine folds (“complex guarding”) on one signature, pp. 457-480 with chochin long-fiber paper and wheat starch paste.
8. Guarded and mended as needed throughout textblock with usu mino long-fiber paper and wheat starch paste. 
9. Hinged on pp. 23-24 (conjugate missing), and pp. 505-6 (conjugate missing) by building a stub with two layers of chochin long-fiber paper (adhered to recto and verso of the page, respectively) and wheat starch paste. 
10. Constructed new, front, marbled endpapers to replace missing originals.
      10. a) Scanned original, back, marbled endpapers in full color at 350 dpi. 
      10. b) “Repaired” the image in Adobe Photoshop, filling in the outer edges to create an
                 oversized image area and disguising the torn inner joint fold. 
      10. c) Printed a reference copy.
               10. d) Adjusted colors in Adobe Photoshop, toning down yellow hues, and decreasing saturation.
      10. e) Printed marbled endsheet on laser paper.
      10. f) Adhered laser-printed marbled sheet to a double folio of dark cream, 70# Mohawk with
                PVA to create stiff-leaf endpapers. 
11. Fashioned inner stays from Western, wove, handmade paper for two inner folios, pp. 228-29 and pp. 180-81.
12. Resewed textblock, including new front endpapers, with 2-strand Irish linen thread on 3-strand cords, following original two-on sewing pattern.
13. Consolidated spine with wheat starch paste, and rounded and backed with an eye toward recreating original spine shape as documented in Before Treatment photographs. 
14. Lined spine with machine-made Kozo and wheat starch paste.
15. Lined spine with cotton textile and wheat starch paste.
16. Constructed one-on, two-off hollow tube from 70# Mohawk text weight paper and adhered to spine with Lascaux 498 HV. 
17. Cut false bands from 20 pt. board and adhered to hollow tube using Lascaux 498 HV.
18. Humidified and flattened original back board.
19. Cut new front board from .72 binders board.  Sanded front head edge, tail edge, and fore edge of board. 
20. Color-matched original leather color by applying washes of leather dye to gold-toned calfskin to build up desired color (formula for dye color: 4 mL brown dye + 15 drops red dye + 5 mL water).  Applied dye in washes with wads of cotton. 
21. Cut and pared calfskin. 
22. Lifted original leather and original marbled endsheet on back board. 
23. Cut a 2 mm compensation strip along spine edge of original back board.
24. Adhered new leather underneath lifted leather on back board using Lascaux 498 HV and wheat starch paste. 
25. Built new case binding using the textblock as a jig.  Positioned front board on the textblock and molded new leather around spine and over new board.  Adhered new leather using wheat starch paste, and let dry overnight, wrapped around textblock, under light weight. 
26. Positioned case around textblock and adhered textile overhang underneath lifted, original, marbled endsheet using Lascaux 498 HV. 
27. Pasted down front textile overhang using wheat starch paste.  Let dry. 
28. Stretched new marbled endsheet across joint with front board open and noted that it fell short of the leather fore-edge turn-in by a few millimeters along the upper three inches of the fore edge.  (This was a result of using a leather remnant for the new covering that was tight on the needed dimensions.)
29. Cut a strip of leather from the ample head turn-in. 
30. Pared leather repair strip almost down to the grain layer.
31. Adhered leather repair strip along fore-edge turn-in inside front board with wheat starch paste. 
32. Adhered laser-printed, marbled paper pastedown with wheat starch paste. 
33. Adhered long-fiber paper toned with acrylic paints as an aesthetic “band-aid” over textile along the inner hinge of the back board using Lascaux 498 HV.
34. Blind tooled leather along either side of false bands on spine.