Why do bookbinders need knife sharpening skills?

D

David Williams

Joined
May 22, 1999
Messages
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I was looking for more websites on Japanese waterstones and found this guys resume. He took a course on Knife Sharpening on Japanese Waterstones from the Univ. of Mich. What kind of knives to bookbinders use and can they make a living bookbinding?
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> http://www.dartmouth.edu/~ealstrom/resume.html

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"A knifeless man is a lifeless man"
-Nordic proverb
 
Knifesharpening is a course? Jeez...I thought my Advanced Neurophysiology was fun!
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I would assume that bookbinding as an art is quite complicated and they get paid good money to do restorations or special bookwork. I would bet there is more to it than you or I could imagine, and I would guess that restoration of antiques is the main source for business. Probably requires sharp knives, too!

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I don't know what bookbinders do with their knives or what the knives look like, but Russell Harrington has several listed in their industrial catelog at:

http://www.rhcutlery.com/PLF_GR.htm

(You have to hit the 'industrial' button at the top of the linked page to get there.)

[This message has been edited by Jeff Clark (edited 29 July 1999).]
 
A good bookbinder can make a good living but there is a very limited market out there for such a skill. Bookbinders would use knives for cutting leather, paper, binding string, possibly wood, their lunch, cardboard boxes etc. etc. I want to go to a university that teaches classes in knife sharpening (or anything else knife related).
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I've done some bookbinding; it's getting to be a popular hobby. Most of your cutting is done with a knife and straightedge. Scissors are pretty useless and so are papercutters small enough for home use. You make multiple passes with a knife and straightedge and that way you can cut through heavy board (the word "cardboard" is never used by bookbinders) and inches of pages. The knife needs a good polished edge to make a clean cut -- with a good sharp knife and some practice at keeping the straightedge from moving you can make very clean cuts and it doesn't show that you did it in multiple passes.

-Cougar Allen :{)
 
The idea of a course in knife sharpening is pretty amusing. Desert Rat keeps threatening to teach people to do it in five minutes, and I think that's basically all the instruction you need -- you'll need to practice more than five minutes to get good at it, but you don't need any more instruction than that. I guess you could stretch it to a half hour by going into a variety of methods and different kinds of edges for different purposes, and being verbose about it. A university course with thirty minutes of total class time??? But this is a *specialized* course, only about sharpening with Japanese water stones! I guess to learn all about sharpening at that university you'd have to start with Introduction to Sharpening 101, then next year you could take Sharpening with Japanese Water Stones 201, the year after that Sharpening with Diamond 301 ... then with Water Stones of Other Nations, Silicon Carbide Stones, Aluminum Oxide Stones, Natural and Man-Made Sandstone, Wa****a, Soft Arkansas and Hard Arkansas ... you could end up with a doctorate before you know how to sharpen a knife! Then what about sharpening planes, chisels (wood chisels, cold chisels, and hot chisels for the sake of preserving a tradition), gouges, scissors, saws (ripsaws, crosscut saws, bucksaws, chain saws, one semester each) ... spokeshaves ... scythes ... can-openers ...

-Cougar Allen :{)
 
Censorship never fails to amuse ... "wa****a" should be w a s h i t a, the coarsest grade of Arkansas stones.

-Cougar Allen :{)
 
If you're really going through "inches" of paper you need to learn about creating a highly thinned edge. For shorter stacks a disposable utility knife blade would be appropriate, but the thick stack needs a little thicker and much longer blade. I can see hours spent on blades held virtually flat on your water stone rubbing ceremonially with a circular stroke. Wearing a kimona and a head band might look good. (On T.V. I've actually seen Japanese women being trained in this manner, I think it was a little clip when the winter olympics were held in Japan.)

Maybe instead of college degrees we should think of belt rankings. Someone could be a third-degree black belt in knife sharpening. There is a Zen element to lengthy sharpening.

We could have Japanese, Chinese, Korean, French, etc. schools of sharpening. I think I'll open my own sharpening dojo.

[This message has been edited by Jeff Clark (edited 29 July 1999).]
 
When you cut through a thick stack of pages you naturally move the scrap you've already cut off out of the way, and you only need the straightedge at the start. You don't cut through inches in one pass; you just keep making more passes....

Cutting with a straightedge is one purpose a chisel grind is actually good for.

I love to sharpen knives; I sink into a meditative state.... When I'm in the mood and I don't have a dull knife I look for one that has a primary bevel that needs grinding. When they're all done ... I think about making knives, by *hand* ... who needs a power grinder??? I've got a power grinder; I even enjoy using it, but it's not the same....

-Cougar Allen :{)
 
Jeff, Couger,

I've been to print shops and they have a machines that can cut a stack of papers up to 4" thick in one swipe. I don't see why a book publishing shop would be any different. Now someone who restores antique books might be different altogether. Don't know that is why I'm curious.

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"A knifeless man is a lifeless man"
-Nordic proverb
 
Yeah, I'm talking about hobbyist bookbinding. The bigger shops have big machinery. Sorry about the confusion.

I suppose they must have to sharpen the blades on those machines, though....
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-Cougar Allen :{)
 
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