• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Sauce Dog

Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    2,812

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Journal Entries posted by Sauce Dog

  1. Sauce Dog

    The Grade Is In - A conserved winner!

    By Sauce Dog,


    Restoration Project #1
    The grade is in and the experiment is now fully complete - I am officially a conservation nerd!

    CGC correctly flagged the married cover as well as all the work done - and all of that passed the test in order to get a Conserved grade of 3.0! This is honestly slightly higher than I was expecting (my initial estimate was 2.5 at most), and even the White pages is an amazing cherry on top.

    How it started:  0.5 incomplete, its life is in shambles. 
    How it's going:  3.0 conserved, ballin' with white pages.  



     
  2. Sauce Dog
    The final, and biggest, step for this entire project was the repair and reattaching of the cover wrap to the interior spine. The book as it was no longer had any of the original wrap that covered the spine (as such it was missing the 25 cent price, title, and Marvel Comics Group label that ran down the spine) and even had some spine damage to it, so care had to be made to ensure the interior spine was strong enough to ensure it could hold the new wrap. This requires creating a support that will attach to the interior spine that includes two extensions/hinges - on which the front and back covers can be attached to (rather than mending the entire wrap together and then attaching the wrap directly to the interior spine. This method allows for the covers to be more securely attached). This is a traditional book repair technique you would find used to repair paperback novels, but as we can see is also applicable to square bound comics.

    I have already cleaned the old glue & paper off the spine (see my previous journal entry), so to begin I cut out a rough cut of repair tissue (Japanese natural Sekishu). This rough cut of paper for the text-spine liner is placed over the spine and allows to me see how much of an overhang I need on the front and back (which will act as a support hinge that I can attach the covers to). Typically, a rough cut means the material is cut a bit larger than I need and will trim it after it is attached, but in this case I opted to cut it down before attaching since I didn't want this hinge to span the entire length of the book from top to bottom.

     

    I clamped the book upright (between two glass sheets) and applied paste to the interior spine. I then placed the repair tissue on and let it dry. I then removed it from the clamp and attached the donor back cover (as well as the spine fold) by placing waste paper under the extension / hinge on the back (to prevent me from getting adhesive on the interior page) and applied paste.

     

    I remove the waste paper, and then immediately replace it with a strip of waxed paper below it before lining up the back cover using my fingers at the corners. Once aligned I simply pressed down so the cover adhere to the hinge. I will then open the back cover to see how the hinge looks and smooth out any wrinkles with my bone folder (as well as dabbing away any excess paste that might have squeezed out along the edge). Once it looks good I close the book, leaving the waxed paper strip in for now while it dries. Once the back cover is dried partially I apply paste along the spine tissue and fold over the spine wrap. Let dry completely.

     

    Once the back cover was secured I would repeat the base steps to attach the front cover to its hinge (place paper under hinge, apply paste, replace paper with wax paper, align and press on cover, let dry). Once all repairs were in place I would let it dry for a full 48 hours while under a light cold press (sandwiched between two glass sheets with a weight on top)
      
  3. Sauce Dog

    Job Complete - From rags to riches

    By Sauce Dog,


    Restoration Project #1
    Once the adhesive was done drying (48 hours) I have nothing left to do but show off the final product. It is certainly still low grade, but a vast improvement that can now be handled without risk of further damage.

    The book was originally a grade condition of POOR / INCOMPLETE (0.5) but now is complete and easily looks like it would fall in the GOOD condition range (1.8 - 2.5). As a final test I am going to submit the book to CGC and see how they grade & label the work done on the book. Note that I did not try to hide any of the conservation work done on the book, this was all about bettering the structural integrity of it - as such you can see the tear seals to the inside front cover. The spine hinges are only visible if you fold open the covers fully, but even then they are easy to miss if you are flipping through the book. 

     

    The main obvious tell of there being repair work (other than the tear seals on the inside front cover) is the spine itself, as since the donor back cover came from a different Canadian annual I had to cut away that comics title from it (but I opted to leave the word ANNUAL on it). When compared side by side to an original Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 you would notice that the world 'Annual' should be slightly lower down - aligned with Mysterio's arm rather than above it. A minor difference, but one that I feel works still for such a low grade book as leaving the donor spine mostly intact maximizes the strength of the repair (yes, I could have cut away the word annual and removed the entire middle of the spine wrap to make it seem like it originally was the correct spine, but I'm not trying to hide anything at this point and feel this looks better). This will most certainly result in the book being flagged by CGC as 'Back cover married'.

      

    I'm pleased with how the repairs turned out, specifically the strength of the mending (I can hold the book up by a cover and let it dangle without anything giving out), especially considering that this was my first attempt at such a big repair on an actual key book - up until this point most books were only a few dollars at most in value. I am looking forward to seeing how it grades.
  4. Sauce Dog

    Tear Seals - (Un)Tear it up

    By Sauce Dog,


    Restoration Project #1
    Today was a simple task of repairing the two tears on the front cover, one approximately two inches running from the left centre edge and a smaller half inch rip at the top edge.

    There is notable change in paper transparency in these two regions (Holding the cover up to light has these two areas looking like they were rubbed with grease) which is indicative of a past amateur repair job involving traditional tape that seem to have fallen off with age long before I bought it (which caused the yellow staining you see in the photos). 

    I used a lignin free Japanese Mulberry (Kozo) paper as the tear seal. Usually I would use a thinner paper when transparency is important (to not cover up art below and make the seal invisible I would use 3gsm, while this paper is closer to 5gsm), but in this case I felt there was no sense trying to 'hide' the seal, especially when the surrounding area had such an obvious yellowing to it that would call attention to whatever repair I did. This higher weight paper would also make for a stronger seal, which was important as I decided to not apply any seals to the front of the cover. The book is already low grade, with many color breaking creases, that it was fine to leave them as is on that side so long as they were aligned correctly. 

    I also took the opportunity to spot press a few of the wrinkles seen here out of cover using a tacking iron (as well as quickly flipping through the interior in case any corners were dog earned - only a single page needed a spot press, so not worth making an entire post and picture for)

     
  5. Sauce Dog

    Spine Scrape - Destroy that which binds

    By Sauce Dog,


    Restoration Project #1
    Today featured fairly small, but important, prepping work on the donor back cover. Before any mending and reattaching of the cover wrap can be done I needed to clean away any old dried glue and paper that have become attached to the inside spine of the donor back cover. I was able to keep the spine attached to this donor cover, which will make attaching it later easier and more secure.

    Using my X-Acto knife I carefully scraped away any crusty glue (and foreign paper), taking care to only scrape or lift away such build up and never slicing (as that could risk cutting the cover wrap I will be using). Scraping down the spine like this will help with attaching it the interior pages later, as it will allow the adhesive to bond directly with the wraps paper fibres and not just on some old glue (which might later crumble and compromise the repair). I will repeat this scraping process later on the interior of book as well (as there are some parts of the original wraps spine still attached).


  6. Sauce Dog

    Dry Cleaning - A brighter future (and back cover)

    By Sauce Dog,


    Restoration Project #1
    The first thing I did was begin with dry cleaning the donor back cover. While sourcing a donor comic took patience and time, the cleaning of it was one of the quickest and easiest jobs I've done to date. Since the Canadian editions lack any printed ads on the cover wrap we are left with a solid blank white page to work with.

    Yellow discolouration from age and foxing is present, but I will not be attempting to correct such defects (as they would require a wet bath to properly remove), I simply gave it a basic dry cleaning: First wiping it down with standard makeup cotton rounds, then since I would not have to worry about damaging ink I used a few large pieces of soft magic eraser (Mr Clean Magic Erasers are excellent. Make sure it has no scent and is fragrance-free) which works wonders on white areas of a book (these can still be used on color ink areas but require a much lighter and limited touch that I could utilize on these blank covers). 

    Much of the dirt was accumulated around raised creases which I shall press out at a later date (and following the press I will do another round of dry cleaning to see if I can get some of the dirt that was inside some of these creases and could now be better cleaned with everything being flattened out).

    While this isn't the most exciting or dramatic before/after example, the large amount of removed dirt left behind on my supplies made it clear it was very beneficial.




  7. Sauce Dog

    Tape Removal - More annoying than spider webbing

    By Sauce Dog,


    Restoration Project #1
    First notable work done on the book would be to address the old tape that was used to attach the loose front cover to the interior. 

    It was clear this book spent a long time taped up, as evident by the yellow staining on the edge of the cover, however only one of the two pieces of tape looked to be from this original repair. The tape at the top front cover shows the typical characteristics of having been applied many, many years ago. The carrier has become hard and brittle, curled, with yellow discolouration, while the adhesive on the end holding it to the book had dried away, so I could simply pull it off the interior with no damage. The glue that covered the front art however was still firmly attached. The piece of tape near the bottom of the front cover looked relatively new by comparison. It was still fairly supple and malleable, and had no discolouration. The adhesive on this piece was much more active, but could still be peeled away from the interior with ease.   

    To remove the tape from the actual cover without damaging the underlying art I applied Bestine, a commercially available solvent, using a cotton swab around the tape as well as on the inside front cover just below where the tape attached - allowing it to soak through the paper and work on the adhesive. I would then use a spatula to begin slowly lifting the tape away from the cover. When it comes to tools for doing restoration, I recommend opting for those that are plastic rather than metal as the latter can much more easily cause damage to the book when scraping (this also applies to when working with staples, as metal-on-metal will cause visible abrasions on the staple surface. Markings such as this can act as a clue when CGC is trying to determine if a book has been disassembled). This specific spatula was part of a basic clay sculpting set you can find at any hobby store. There are times you might have to use a metal spatula though, specifically when needing to remove difficult tape with a heated spatula (a heated metal tip helps reactivate the adhesive). 

    While the solvent I used will 100% evaporate not long after application, I figured it better to err on the side of caution - so I opted to place some book deodorizing granules in with the cover to ensure even the slightest odor from the process be removed.