Friday, July 19, 2013

A Reader's Question

 I have an older (mid-1990's) TAN Books Douay Rheims with the padded leather cover.  A number of years ago, it was on the seat of my truck in the winter and a sudden stop sent it flying onto the floor, which was wet from melted snow.  While the cover was fine, the pages absorbed some of the moisture and ended up waving and stiffening up.  I dried the Bible as best I could, but couldn't stop the page warping.  This Bible is special to me because it was a confirmation gift from my sponsor (complete with a note of encouragement on the inside of the cover).  Would you (or any of the others who read the blog) have any suggestions on how to flatten the pages and restore them to a softer/more flexible manner?

 Any ideas?
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5 comments:

  1. Christopher W. SpeaksJuly 19, 2013 at 6:40 AM

    Margie over at Leonard's might be willing to offer some free advice. I know they've managed to repair water-damaged Bibles in the past.

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  2. MichaelJuly 19, 2013 at 8:29 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. MichaelJuly 19, 2013 at 8:41 AM

    NOTE: Sorry, I needed to make a correction to my original comment and the only way to do that was to delete it and re-post it.

    I guess this answer depends upon how much work you want to put into it. You can iron the pages (yes, with a clothing iron). I have done this with good results.

    Here are a couple of links for you to read:

    http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091114111549AAXleM3

    This process is what is done at a book bindery to fix water damaged books:

    http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110929134555AALz4pS

    It all boils down (no pun intended) to how much work you want to put into it and how much risk you want to take by further damaging the Bible. If it is valuable to you, you might want to have it worked on by a professional.

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  4. AnonymousJuly 19, 2013 at 7:02 PM

    Thanks for the suggestions so far. I'm trying the ironing method and working from back to front. Up to the beginning of Acts and it seems to be doing fairly well. Looks like there may be a little bit of wave left, but as long as the pages turn smoothly, that's my biggest issue.

    BTW, any suggestions on how to brace the spine of the book as I move more into the middle?

    Thanks.

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  5. AnonymousJuly 22, 2013 at 6:53 AM

    Thank you all for the help. I finished it last night and it seems to flip much better now. Still not perfect, but enough of an improvement that I'm happy. :)

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