Equipment ...

Ok, so the first thing a person needs to do when starting something new, is to get the stuff you need to do it. If you were going to try knitting, you'd get knitting needles and yarn. For bookbinding, you need a whole lot of stuff, allot of which I can't afford.Like the presses and stuff, but I figured it was ok right now since it probably wouldn't be learning hard cover any time soon anyway, I still have to learn simple binding first.
So yesterday, I went down to Midvally MegaMall and got some of the basic stuff you need to do binding.
Some of the stuff my Mum had already, so I didn't get those.
What I did get was a block of wax 'cos they didn't have linen or waxed cotton, but we had cotton at home, a wooden folder and some PVA glue.
My Mum supplied the guillotine, the cotton, and the needle(you can't really see the needle in that picture, but it's there by the cotton.).
It would have been nice if I could have found an awl, and the proper paste for books as well, but I couldn't. I didn't find book boards either but I probably wont be needing them as soon as I will the others.

What I'm Doing on this Blog

Ok, I just finished high school and I would love it if I could become a bookbinder. I love books, I love being around them, I love reading them. And it would be great if I could have a job that would allow me to be around them. So if I put that together with other bits and pieces of my personality (of which I will not bore you with), Bookbinding is the most perfect job for me.
I came to this conclusion about a year ago when I was going through a careers website trying to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life after I left school. So I found out more about it, and the more I knew, the more I wanted to do it.

It was all great. I had a goal, something I finally thought I would enjoy doing. Next step. Get Training. Not as easy as it sounds. I could not find ANYONE that teaches bookbinding. No one. Nada. Zip. Zilch. A few university's in England teach conservation, but that wasn't really what I wanted to do. I want to be making the books, rather than determining how old they are etc.
It would be nice to do some of the practical side of conservation bookbinding in the future, in order to learn more about what I hope will be my craft. But I don't want it to be my main focus, if you know what I mean.

So, after months of frustrating search for a teacher, and a long talk with my mum, I decided to teach myself.

In this blog, "The Bookbinder's Apprentice" I will record as much as I can of what I am going through, and how I'm doing it and figuring out everything of what it takes to bind books.
Wish me luck. And I hope that if anyone else is trying to find out the way to get training for bookbinding, that they will be able to look at my blog, and perhaps use it as a cheat sheet and maybe avoid any mistakes I am probably going to do.

Saaski