Tag Archives: Jeff Peachey

Just Peachey: Jeff’s Conservation Hand Tools Workshop

For one week in July, 2024, the Preservation Lab busted out belt sanders and opened the elbow grease to host a workshop taught by Jeff Peachey, learning all about making, modifying and maintaining our own hand tools. Jeff, a book conservator and master tool maker, brought all kinds of fun machinery and exciting tools for us to learn from and use. From hacksaws to pencil sharpeners, Jeff’s tool collection is inspiring, and we all left the week with some amazing new additions to our bench.

A set of raw materials each participant received at the beginning of the week to shape into their own personal new tool set! Credit: Jeff Peachey
Extra scraps of horse butt, cherry, pear and box wood, Delrin, and bamboo: materials we used and experimented with during our workshop. Credit: Jessica Ebert

Delrin

We started the week off working with Delrin. Delrin, an acetal homopolymer plastic that appears similar to Teflon, was easy to shape with saws, files, scrapers and silicon carbide sandpapers. We burnished with sanding pads and polishing paper.

We started off with Delrin rods that we shaped into delicate heras. Heras are thin tools with spatula-like ends that Jeff says are great for delicate prying, inserting small amounts of adhesive, and lifting tape to name a few of the uses for this handy little tool.

We made a rough cut of the shape we wanted with the bandsaw, then smoothed everything out by going through a sandpaper grit progression. Once we’d crafted these, many of us tried our hand at making versatile Delrin folders. With lots of filing and sanding, this malleable Delrin was easy to manipulate into a variety of tool shapes, and no two tools were exactly alike.

A Delrin hera created by Holly. Credit: Holly Prochaska
Ashleigh uses a saw to shape her Delrin. Credit: Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer
Jeff demonstrates how to work with Delrin. Credit: Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer

Knives

Our second and third days with Jeff were all about M2 steel knifes, both sharpening them and making them. We learned all about using Jeff’s sharpening system and honed down our own Peachey paring knife. We also made two lifting knives out of Starrett 32T hacksaw blades by grinding the blades down on a belt sander and then taking them through the sharpening system with microfinishing films to achieve a sharp edge.

A progression of 3M Microfinishing Films adhered to a glass plate for sharpening. Credit: Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer
A Peachey knife next to a sharpening system on marble. Credit: Holly Prochaska

Sharpening knives turned out to be a complex process – a burr must be formed at each grit gradient before moving on to the finer grind, and if your hand position is off this could take some time. Furthermore, the wrong hand position could yield a bevel angle too big or too small on the plane of the knife. We aimed for an ideal bevel angle between 11 and 13 degrees.

Specular light shows a raw bevel angle during sharpening, before it has been ground smooth on the first grit progression. Credit: Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer

Additional Knife Features

Some people chose to add grooves into the sides of their paring knives for a more comfortable grip; some of us chose to wrap our knife handles in leather and make horse butt sheaths for them. Matt was the bravest of all and mounted a custom carved wooden handle to his left-handed paring knife.

Catarina finishes a groove on the belt sander to make it more comfortable to hold. Credit: Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer
Ashleigh begins her groove. Credit: Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer
Matt’s paring knife is pictured with a wooden handle and leather sheath. Credit: Matt McCoy
Ashleigh’s German-style paring knife with a leather covered handle. Credit: Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer
Kathy Lechuga’s completed hack saw lifting knife. Credit: Signature Conservation
Kathy Lechuga’s rounded French-style paring knife with a leather covered handle. Credit: Signature Conservation

Grained Book Cloth

We also went over creating 19th century grained book cloth on our third day. Through toning, glazing, then pressing with a die that has your desired pattern, it’s possible to create book cloth that mimics the textures of 19th century book cloth. After going through the time-consuming process, the idea of making up large batches at one time became appealing.

Jeff demos coating a cotton muslin with acrylics and paste, pressing the coated cloth with screens to add a grain, then finishing with an egg glare. Credit: Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer
Jeff’s samples he made ahead of the workshop

Wood and Bamboo

On our fourth day we learned all about wood and bamboo carving. Using a chisel, wood plane or hatchet, we created the crude shape we wanted our wooden tools to take. Then we got to work sanding until the wood was smooth, and created a more precise shape. A final finish with nose grease or wax was optional.

Jeff’s workbench after his wood carving demo. Credit: Jessica Ebert

Bamboo is great for creating thin, flexible tools. With our pieces of wood most of us created folders, but a few decided to make wooden handles for their knives or straight edges. Personally, my favorite tool I created the whole week was my wooden folder I made, though it was probably the hardest to create. I had to shape it using a small hatchet, then sand it for quite some time before it took on the shape that I wanted.

Jeff demonstrating how to carve our piece of wood using his proprietary bench hook. Credit: Jessica Ebert
Holly chiseling a piece of bamboo using a generic bench hook. Credit: Jessica Ebert
My new wood folder. Credit: Nicole Browning

Stainless Steel

Our final day with Jeff was spent shaping stainless steel tools, which to me was the hardest material we worked with, as it took a lot of patience with the belt sander, and the metal was prone to heating up quickly and potentially burning our fingers. We created straight edges or 45 degree triangles, and even learned how to drill holes and attach small handles to these tools. We also had a thicker piece of stainless steel for creating a folder, which I found the most challenging of all. The stainless steel was harder to manipulate, understandably, and much less forgiving than the wood or Delrin.

Holly drilling holes in the stainless steel handle of her straight edge. Credit: Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer
Two stainless steel folders made and engraved by Jessica. Credit: Jessica Ebert

We ended the week by testing the sharpness of our blades and doing a little show and tell of our favorite tools that we made. It was so amazing to see all the different tool shapes people were inspired to make based upon what they most used in their work.

My assortment of tools I made at the workshop. From left to right: bamboo lifters, two Delrin Heras, two lifting knifes, a Delrin folder, a paring knife and its sheath, and a wooden folder. Credit: Nicole Browning

Learning from Jeff was such an amazing opportunity, and it was so eye-opening and world-expanding to learn that so many of these tools we use every day can be created from our own hands.

Jeff did a fabulous job tailoring his tool-making workshop to the the availability of machinery and other logistics of our facility. As a result, the actual tools made in our version of this workshop vary from other workshops Jeff has taught, empowering us to keep making tools with our space in the future. If you ever have the chance to take this workshop, we highly recommend it!

Be sure to check out this Instagram post by Jeff featuring all of us showing off our favorite hand tools we created!

Nicole Browning [CHPL] – Conservation Assistant

Fish gelatin: Spreading the word about a book conservator’s new friend

Last year around this time, the lab was fortunate to bring in book conservator and toolmaker, Jeff Peachey for a week-long intensive workshop to learn leather rebacking. While I always expect to walk away with new anticipated skills as advertised by the workshop, I’m ALSO always pleasantly surprised by the tangential tips and tricks shared along the way.  In the case of Peachey’s workshop, there were many! One of my favorites was his use of a fish gelatin.

Introduction to Cold Fish Gelatin

While adhering spine linings to our text blocks, Peachey pulled out a small baggie of fish gelatin he brought with him to the workshop.  He poured the dry flaky powder into a small jar, added room temperature cold water, and mixed it until a liquid-y consistency.  He then added strained wheat starch paste to the gelatin and mixed with water until he was happy with the consistency.  He estimated it was a 40:60 ratio of gelatin to paste. 

Jeff Peachey taught a workshop at the Preservation Lab in Oct. 2022 where he first introduced us to a low-bloom fish gelatin for book conservation that didn’t require heat for use

If you’ve ever used gelatin before, you might be wondering – how is it possible to mix the gelatin without heating?  That’s the beauty of this product – it has a high molecular weight with low bloom strength and is produced from cold water fish which gives it this ability.  It might not be the strongest of the films with a 0-bloom strength, but for a book conservator doing paper repairs that need to be reversible yet strong, this combo still had an amazing tack when dry!

Peachey explained he first heard about the gelatin on a lab tour at the Weissman Center. He recalled Alan Puglia might have been the one who originally investigated the adhesive for pigment consolidation of hundreds of manuscripts for a show. The mention of a high molecular weight Norland fish gelatin was shared during a talk given at the American Institute for Conservation’s 44th annual meeting.  The talk was titled, The Challenge of Scale: Treatment of 160 Illuminated Manuscripts for Exhibition,” by Debora D. Mayer and Alan Puglia.

Peachey also doesn’t take credit for mixing the gelatin with wheat starch paste. He notes that even in Rene Matin Dudin’s 18th century manual, it discusses the “union” of paste and glue in the last paragraph below.

Peachey shares an excerpt by Rene Matin Dudin descripting his 18th century historic use of gelatin mixed with paste.

By the end of the week-long workshop, I had fallen in love with the properties of how well it adhered.  By itself, the fish gelatin had a long working time and didn’t stick until it was nearly dry – but when mixed with wheat starch paste, it combined the best of both worlds.  There was both the initial tack from the paste and a strong adhesion from the gelatin after dry.  I wasted no time in ordering my own sample supply.

Treatments Testing the HMW Fish Gelatin

Over the past year, I’ve slowly incorporated the fish gelatin in treatments and testing more applications. 

  • I first successfully used it to hinge-in heavy encapsulated sleeves into an album containing lung cross sections. After ultrasonically welding a paper hinge into an encapsulated sleeve, I applied the mix of wheat starch paste and fish gelatin to adhere the hinge to the scrapbook stubbing and had wonderful success.  I was able to adhere with confidence that the encapsulation would stay in place and was able to avoid disbinding and resewing.  At one point during treatment, I found I needed to reposition a hinge.  I am happy to report the mixture was as easily reversible as wheat starch paste alone!

Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer uses the 40:60 mixture of fish gelatin and wheat starch paste to hinge encapsulations into an album, ensuring the heavy encapsulations with paper hinges stay adhered.

  • Most recently, I played around with using it for photographic emulsion consolidation. I used it first as a barrier layer before inpainting, and then to add sheen to in-painted photograph regions that were originally matte in comparison to the surrounding gelatin coating. It seemed extremely easy to apply and clean up was less messy than other photographic gelatins I’ve used in the past.  The sheen was just the right amount of gloss I needed without being overly shiny.  And, best of all, no heat required.
Before in-painting emulsion losses
After in-painting emulsion

Examples of photographic condition issues where the fish gelatin was tested: flaking emulsion was consolidated and a barrier layer was applied before inpainting

  • We’ve also used the gelatin to stabilze breaks in a wooden box originally used to house a Richter’s architecture game from the early 20th century.
Before Treatment
Inserting fish gelatin with syringe
Clamping box during the curing process
  • Jeff Peachey’ main use is to line spines. He’s found it not only has better adhesion than straight paste, but makes the spine feel slightly more solid and resistant to torsional forces
Applying fish gelatin to adhere spine linings
  • In the future, I imagine this gelatin would have excellent potential in media consolidation.

In all these uses, I couldn’t be more thrilled to not have to pull out my baby bottle warmer to set a beaker of gelatin on.  As a result, there was no fuss in worrying about how long the gelatin was heated and if it was losing its properties due to heat.

Example of using a baby bottle or coffee warmer to re-heat pre-made gelatin during typical use

In terms of shelf life, the dried granules can be kept indefinitely like unmixed wheat starch paste.  Once mixed, Jeff suggests that he’s found the adhesive properties hold up for about a week in the fridge; however, it does begin to smell fishy after just a day. So unlike wheat starch paste, if you’re adverse to the fishy odor, you’ll only want to make up as much as you’re planning to use for one day. 

Supplier Info

Interested in getting your hands on some?

I found the product used at Weisman is no longer supplied by Norland – but I was able to track down what appears to be the same product through AJINOMOTO NORTH AMERICA, INC.  If you’re interested in trying a sample, message Henry Havey, the Business Development Manager of Collagen & Gelatin at haveyh@ajiusa.com to request a sample of High Molecular Weight (HMW) dried fish gelatin. 

Fish gelatin sample acquired by the lab in a 500 gram sample bag

They provided me with a 500- gram sample at no cost and confirmed it was a Type A fish gelatin with a 0-bloom strength. Henry Harvey can also provide a pricing quote should you be interested in ordering a full supply which comes in 25 kg packs. They also provided the following product data info sheets:

HMWD-Tech-SheetDownload

While I still covet my isinglass cast films I created from boiling dried fish bladders, as well as our mammalian photographic grade type B gelatin, this HMW fish gelatin is a welcome addition I’ve added to my tool kit.

Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer [CHPL] – Special Collections Conservator, Co-Lab Manager

Bibliography:

Facing Anyone?!

Back in October of 2022, The Preservation Lab had the pleasure of hosting Book Conservator, Jeff Peachey, for a week-long workshop on Conservation of Leather Bindings. One of the topics that was mentioned, but not discuss in depth, was leather facing.

No one in the lab had ever faced leather before, so Sr. Conservation Specialist, Jessica Ebert, and I decided to conduct some tests to understand the process, the best materials, and tools. With the research available, Jessica and I focused primarily on two sources, Conservation of Leather and Related Materials by Marion Kite and Roy Thomson and an article written by James Reid-Cunningham entitled Leather Rebacking, for the Seminar in Standards of Excellence in Hand Bookbinding, The Guild of Book Workers, 2013.  

The primary reasons for testing out this technique was the fact that there were leather books from UC’s Archives and Rare Books Library here in the Lab for treatment and they could potentially be good candidates for leather facing.

Let the tests begin!!

Both Jessica and I chose two different withdrawn leather books to test on:

  • A tight back leather book
  • A leather book with false raised bands and a hollow tube
A book in a press
Catarina’s test model (tight back) before facing.
A book in a press
Catarina’s test book model (tight back) after facing.
Book in press awaiting treatment
Jessica’s test book model (tight back) before facing.
Book in press awaiting treatment
Jessica’s test book model (tight back) after facing.
Catarina’s test model (hollow tube with false raised bands) before facing.
Catarina’s test model after the leather facing.
Jessica’s test model (hollow tube with false raised bands) before facing.
Jessica’s test model after the leather facing treatment.

The first step was to consolidate the leather on all the withdrawn books we were using as models. The leather was consolidated with 3% Klucel G in isopropanol. Since there were different methods shown in the available resources regarding leather facing, we decided to use two different methods for facing: facing with Japanese tissue adhered with Klucel G and facing with a Crompton heat-set tissue activated with ethanol. Trying out these two different methods would help us to understand which one of these materials would work best and cause less damage/staining to the leather.

Catarina’s Test Models

After having consolidated the leather, the spine was “divided” in two sections, top and bottom, with a small portion of the spine in between. The reason the spine wasn’t fully faced was because I wanted to see if there were any changes in the leather after being faced, removed, and reattached.

Leather consolidated with 3% Klucel G in isopropanol.
For this model, since the leather was so degraded, it wasn’t possible to get the Japanese tissue to adhere with klucel G. Therefore, only the Crompton heat-set tissue was used.

For this book, the leather was very degraded, and I couldn’t get the Japanese tissue to adhere to the leather spine with Klucel G. As a result, for this model I only used the Crompton heat-set tissue method.

The adhesive on the heat-set tissue was activated by brushing on a thin layer of ethanol. Once it was activated, the heat-set tissue was placed on the spine, and with a tamping brush pressed on the leather. Using a lifting knife, I was able to remove the leather spine, leaving the middle portion still adhered to the text block for comparison.

Two portions of the spine fully removed.
Leather spine removed, and two portions of the spine faced.

Once the leather spine was removed, I relined the text block spine with a reversible layer of Japanese tissue and wheat starch paste. The two portions of the leather spine were lined from the back with Japanese kozo fiber tissue and wheat starch paste.

At this point, there were two different ways to follow, I could adhere the faced spines to the text block and then remove the heat-set tissue, or I could remove to heat-set tissue first and then adhere the leather spine to the text block. I decided to first remove the heat-set tissue by activating the adhesive again with ethanol and gently removing it with a Caselli spatula. Once the heat-set tissue was fully removed and the leather was dry, I reattached each portion of the leather spine to the text block with wheat starch paste.

Completed book in press
Two portions of the leather spine adhered to the text block spine.

For the leather book with false raised bands and hollow tube, the process was very similar. However, for this model I was able to try out both the Japanese tissue adhered with Klucel G as a facing method and the Crompton heat-set tissue.

Book in press and the spine being removed with a lifting knife.
Test book model with false raised bands and hollow tube.

The spine was “divided” in two sections: top portion was faced with Crompton heat-set tissue activated with ethanol and the bottom portion of the spine was faced with Japanese kozo fiber tissue adhered with Klucel G.

Using a Peachey lifting knife, I was able to remove both portions of the spine. On the top portion of the spine, I ended up not removing the previous hollow tube, but removed it completely on the bottom portion of the spine.

book in press with the spine removed
Leather spine was removed. The hollow tube was not removed on the top portion of the spine and removed completely on the bottom portion of the spine.
Leather spine removed and facing intact
Two sections of the leather spine faced with different methods.

Once the two portions of the spine were removed, a new hollow tube was created to adhered to the bottom portion of the text block spine. The hollow tube was mode of Griffin Mill Broadsheet 60 gm/115 gm paper. The new hollow tube was adhered with wheat starch paste.

Again, I decided to remove the facing tissue before adhering the leather spine back on. With ethanol, I was able to remove the facing tissue from both pieces of the spine. As seen in the pictures below, while removing the Crompton heat-set tissue there was some loss of the leather along the edges and where the leather was most degraded already.

  • New hollow tube adhere to the bottom section of the spine.
  • Removing the Crompton heat-set tissue with a Caselli spatula and ethanol.
  • Removing the Crompton heat-set tissue with a Caselli spatula and ethanol.

Each spine piece was lined on the verso with a Tengujo tissue and wheat starch paste. This provided some support to the fragile leather spines. The two pieces of the spine were then adhered back on with wheat starch paste.

  • Leather spine after being faced, removed, and reattached.
  • Leather spine after being faced, removed, and reattached.

Jessica’s Test Models

Here are a few of Jessica’s test models (she has a better eye for taking good photographs throughout the process).

  • Tight back leather binding before facing.
  • Spine faced with Japanese tissue adhered with Klucel G and with Crompton heat-set tissue.
  • Mid process, spine fully detached.
  • Two sections of the spine faced with different materials.
  • Tight back test model after facing.
  • Leather book before treatment
  • leather book with facing attached
  • Spine being lifted with a knife
  • Leather spine removed and placed next to the book
  • portion of leather spine with facing removed
  • completed book in press

Final Thoughts…

This was a great project that Jessica and I worked together. It was useful to test out different methods using different types of books with leathers in various stages of deterioration. We learned that Japanese tissue may not be able to be used as a facing material when coated with Klucel G, since in one of the tests I did, it did not adhere to the leather. This could lead to further testing, perhaps working with a Klucel G of a different concentration since we only used a 3% concentration for these tests. In addition, depending on how degraded the leather is, using a Crompton heat-set tissue may not be an ideal good solution for every item as it created some damage on the surface layer of the leather spine of our of the test books. Finally, at least in one of my models, the leather became darker than it was originally. There is still more testing and practice to do before we use this technique on a collection item, but this was a great place to start.

Catarina Figueirinhas [UCL] —- Assistant Conservator

Our Wonderful Week with Jeff Peachey: A Recap in Instagram Reels

At the end of October we were lucky enough to have Jeff Peachey come to the Lab for a week-long workshop on Leather Conservation. We covered sewing extensions, joint tacketing, board splitting and cotton hinges, leather rebacks, and knife sharpening. In the weeks following the workshop we shared highlights from the workshop on our Instagram…

Highlights from the workshop
Sewing extensions and joint tacketing

And we couldn’t not highlight the master at work (sharpening and paring leather likes its butter) and the amazing tools Jeff makes:

Leather rebacks, including board slitting, inserting a cloth hinge, lifting the original leather, dyeing the new leather, and paring and attaching the reback.

Finally, conservation ASMR…Jeff Peachey style! Make sure the sound is on for this one…

We had the best time with Jeff. He is such a knowledgable and approachable instructor, and we learned so much from him. Thanks for coming to the Preservation Lab, Jeff!

Fun fact, did you know that Jeff was inspired by a press we have in the Lab to collaborate with Timothy Moore to create a “perfect all purpose” press that you can buy for your lab or studio?!

Jessica Ebert [UCL] – Social Media Coordinator and Sr. Conservation & Photographic Documentation Specialist