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Part of Which error should decide your next bookbinding tool purchase?
Storing bookbinding tools means separate boxes for steel and organic stock
How to store materials used for bookbinding tools: steel wants dry, organic stock wants stable, and they should not share a box. Pest treatment, cavity packing.
What to take away
- Tools and the materials they work on want opposite conditions. Steel wants dry; leather and cloth want stable.
- Dust is abrasive, and the machine you clean the store with matters as much as how often you do it.
- A hard case is worth more than a soft roll for anything with an edge.
- Label everything, because an unlabeled box is a box you will open in five years and repack.
Split the storage by material, not by tool
| Group | Wants | Threat |
|---|---|---|
| Steel tools | Dry, oiled lightly, not touching | Rust, chipped edges |
| Bone and Teflon folders | Dry, flat, unstressed | Warping, cracking |
| Board and paper | Flat, stable humidity, dark | Cockling, acid migration |
| Cloth, leather, thread | Stable humidity, dark, sealed | Pests, mold, red rot |
| Adhesives | Sealed, frost free, dated | Separation, spoilage |
The mistake almost everyone makes is storing all of these together in one box under the bench, which suits none of them and actively harms two.
Store by Material, Not by Tool
Steel
- Wants
- Dry, oiled, apart
- Threat
- Rust, chipped edges
Bone/Teflon
- Wants
- Dry, flat, unstressed
- Threat
- Warping, cracking
Board/Paper
- Wants
- Flat, dark, stable RH
- Threat
- Cockling, acid migration
Cloth/Leather
- Wants
- Dark, sealed, stable RH
- Threat
- Pests, mold, red rot
Clean the store, with the right machine
Leather, parchment, cloth, thread and paste-heavy scrap feed pests, and dust feeds and hides them. Cleaning is part of storage, so the machine matters.
The Park Service guidance on choosing a museum vacuum cleaner lists the jobs: general housekeeping, dusting collections, removing pest waste after an infestation, responding to a mold outbreak, and flood cleanup.
It also stresses filtration. The filter must be effective enough to stop most particulates blowing straight back out through the exhaust, and high-efficiency particulate air filtration is the more effective option.
At a home bench that means one machine with good filtration and a soft brush attachment, used on the shelves and inside the boxes, not just on the floor.
Hard cases beat soft rolls
Soft rolls are traditional and they let edges knock together. Anything with a cutting edge should sit in a case that holds it still: a shallow drawer with dividers, a fitted box, or a case made for the purpose.
The principle behind a good case is not new. The Park Service instructions for crating museum objects for shipment describe the method used at Mesa Verde National Park for a traveling exhibit. Objects were cavity-packed inside cardboard boxes, and those boxes were then floated within a constructed crate: a package-within-a-package approach that gives a safe environment in transit.
Cavity packing inside an outer box is exactly what a tool case should do: hold each item in its own shaped space so nothing moves.
Humidity and the sensible compromise
Steel prefers dry air. Leather, cloth and board prefer stability more than any particular figure. In a house you cannot have both perfectly, so keep steel in a closed drawer with a light film of oil and keep the organic stock in a separate closed box in the most stable room you have.
The marbling equivalent of this split is described in storing marbling materials, and what is worth owning at all is assessed in judging bookbinding tools.
