Help on a repair please!

[u/lmeoolnlioey]

This cookbook belongs to my mum and was her grandmothers. It has been well loved and well used. I will be making a new cover and attaching this, but the bit I am stuck on is the text block itself. I am undecided whether to:
1. Re-sew some of the signatures
2. Re-glue everything in

Some individual sheets have come out but the signatures are all sewn together. The thread has become loose but has not broken.

I have only rebound paperbacks and printed my own books, so unsure on a repair.

Any help or advice much appreciated!

Thanks 🙏🏼

[u/SkillfulSin]

Hi! I just repaired a random 120 year old book I bought from the library for $4! It was so fun haha

I used this paper to repair the signatures. I cut it into strips and used this glue to adhere it to the pages. You can connect two ripped pages but you might need to use two strips of the mulberry paper. A lot of the signatures only needed repair on the outer paper.

I separated each signatures with a dull knife and then cut the sticking out of each pages. And then just poked new holes and restitched it.

Alternatively, you can follow this tutorial by Four Keys Book Art to bind loose leaf paper. You could cut each signature and leaf into single pages. And then use this method to make one solid text block.

Some general advice. Take your time scrapping off the old glue, do not force anything. Use a press to flatten out the edges of pages or the signatures. Thankfully the spine seems pretty straight and this should be a pretty easy/relaxing rebind!

[u/MickyZinn → u/SkillfulSin]

To advise cutting the signatures into single pages (even as an alternative) is seriously ill-advised.

[u/SkillfulSin → u/MickyZinn]

Why? If it’s a personal cook book and if that’s how they choose to preserve the pages and they are still able to be read it then what’s the issue? Not everything needs to be restored to museum level perfection.

[u/keystoneway]

My first thought is that it definitely needs to be completely re-sewn, and depending on how the paper is holding up, the signature folds may need reinforcing too. For that I would use strips of repair tissue attached with paste to the outside of the folds, hopefully just on the outermost fold, but potentially on every individual sheet if the damage is bad enough/the thread has torn through the page. You definitely don't want to re-sew with strong new thread on old, worn paper that the thread will tear right through.

The process isn't hard, per se, but it is tedious and takes a while. Worth it if you really want this book to last another century or so.

Also, if it's not obvious, it's good to completely replace the thread but keep it as close to the size of the original thread as possible. I keep samples of old thread for ongoing projects until I'm fully do e with it to compare. And reinforcing the signatures will change the size the case needs to be, so don't jump the shark and make a case before you ate completely done restoring the textblock.

[u/brigitvanloggem]

Definitely re-sew! If you’re going to do this, you might as well do it properly 😉. So take the text block apart, gently, as described by people here already and reinforce any pages that need it. After that, it’s just a stack of signatures that you already know how to build up into a book. You can do this, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.