Paper Painting: Using Acrylics to Repair Leather Bindings

This summer I had the pleasure to intern with Collections Care in the conservation lab under Nora Lockshin, Paper Conservator. As a painting major in undergraduate school, I had no idea what to expect coming into a paper conservation environment. What I thought was going to be all book and paper turned out to be a much different experience and a little more up my alley. Here I’ll briefly explain how I repaired the leather bindings of some of William H. Dall’s field books using Japanese tissue and acrylic paint.

To start things off, I applied a thin adhesive, or 20% Lascaux 498 HV in isopropanol, to consolidate the deteriorated areas of the leather. This keeps the brittle pieces in place while the repair is being executed. When applying the solution of Lascaux, I made sure to keep the immediate area properly ventilated to prevent inhalation of the solvents.

While the Lascaux is drying, tinted Japanese tissue is cut to the size of the damaged space on the book’s spine. In the case of the Dall books, the damage extended past the spine and a little onto the boards. In order to create continuity in the repair and book, I used black and blue acrylic paint to dye the color of the paper to match the color of the book. You want the color to be almost exactly the same so that there is no distraction from the book itself. After a few trials, and with my experience as a painting major, I was able to get the perfect mixture of dark blue that matched the color of the field book.

For these field books, I applied the tissue that reinforces the hinges in a “baggy back” style over the remaining spine fragment. This means instead of exactly replicating the original tight-back construction,  the tissue was attached to the hinges and boardswithout adhering directly to the spine so that the spine may arch and flex, as opposed to being very tightly held together. The adhesive used here is also Lascaux 498HV, however the solution is 100% Lascaux as opposed to the dilute 20% used earlier. After the tissue is applied it is placed under weight and left to dry.

Leather repair is a fun process that is much different from other processes in the paper conservation field. While there are more steps taken to repair the leather, this brief explanation gives you the very basics of what it takes to conserve a deteriorating book like Dall’s field books.

Related Resources

• Priscilla Anderson & Alan Puglia. Solvent-Set Book Repair Tissue, 2003, The Book and Paper Group Annual 22 

Related Collections

• Record Unit 7073 - William H. Dall Papers, circa 1839-1858, 1862-1927, Smithsonian Institution Archives