BOOK ARTS

Welcome to the Eden Workshops.

For nearly 25 years my wife and I ran a system of craft workshops about the Book Arts at Downside Abbey in Somerset England.

As well as Craft Book Binding we marbled paper and ran a private press as well as a box making workshop.

In 1997 the workshops were voted a National Living Treasure for their contribution to the book arts.

Here you will find articles of interest to anyone who works within the book arts, I have tried to cover some of the lesser known areas as I feel much is already being said on other websites concerning the more frequented subjects, for example there are articles about the use of sheepskin leather as a book material as well as an article specifically about book clasps, there are also well as pages concerning leather. I hope the comprehensive links pages will be of very real value as they cover not only Europe but also the USA as well, these pages are being constantly updated to ensure links are working correctly.

We offer a guiding hand to those new to bookbinding or the related crafts. No matter what stage you are at, we can answer your questions and help you find your way forward. We may be able to find a teacher near you, or help you to learn at home. We can help you locate second hand equipment, tools, binding materials, we give unbiased advice based on 30 plus years experience.

We have found a supplier of superb quality traditionally made wooden equipment. This equipment features larger diameter screws and threaded cheeks, which give longer life to the press and enable greater pressure to be achieved.  Made of furniture grade solid beech this bookbinding equipment will stand regular hard use. 

For a bookbinder, publisher, or anyone involved in applying cold or hot glue to covering materials, one of the single biggest aids to efficiency is a cold gluing machine.

 We supply many types of agate burnisher

Here is the Schmedt heated gilding roller, we also supply all the various accessories.

The PraPremo book corner press is a standalone piece of equipment designed to take the hard work out of forming corners for books, it comes complete in it's own carrying box and a full compliment of corners.

The Schärffix is a tool with which you can easily
pare / skive (thin out) leather for further processing.
In this way, the leather can be used for a book cover
or other products that need a very thin leather.

We supply a wide range of boards cutters.

Capra leathers and Oasis leathers. Goatskin Capra 0.4/0.Aniline dyed, chrome tanned, goatskin grain leather.
Hot foil tooling, blind embossing, split grain leather. Not suitable for tooling with gold leaf. You can tool with gold leaf on Oasis leather.

Not all finishing tools are created equal. These tools are endorsed  by Mr. Bernard C. Middleton MBE FSA. They have refinements that make the job of finishing easier. Getting brass blocks engraved has always been a costly business, but we have found a first class engraver with low overheads, if you are still reeling from a quote by a mainstream engraver, give us a call, you may be pleasantly surprised.

EVERY MONTH I SEND OUT THE BOOKBINDERS DIGEST. WHICH AIMS TO BRING YOU INTERESTING ITEMS CONCERNING THE WORLD OF BOOKBINDING AND RELATED CRAFTS. IF YOU WOULD CARE TO SUBSCRIBE PLEASE JUST MAIL ME PUTTING "EDEN" IN THE SUBJECT LINE.

edenworkshops@orange.fr