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Complete Restoration Experiments

Started by Hero Restoration,

469 posts in this topic

etanick

etanick

Posted
Posted

I am so glad you decided to post the bigger scans...i am repeating myself as I have many times in this tread.

 

awesome job :applause:

 

how does CGC note the pages washing? Obviously if submitted, the book would have notes like cover cleaned, color touches, reinforced, etc...I am just curious on how the washing of the pages will be noted.

 

TIA

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dicjones

dicjones

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Posted
Book 21 Minor correction

 

 

This book was sent to me with some pre-existing restoration to the top edge where the green meets the red. The top edge has a small piece missing and was repaired with a small solid piece then overlapped with a larger textured piece. Between the textured surface and off color match the work was very noticeable. The owner was not interested in any major re-work of the area but was hoping I could get the color match closer then it was. I was able to re-color touch the area and make the surface smoother but it still has a little surface differential so I was only partially successful in blending the area.

 

While I was at it I hand pressed out a beat up lower edge on the front of the book, which otherwise was a very stunning book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMG_0001x2.jpg

 

ba4.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ba2-1.jpg

 

 

If you are wondering why the image on the right looks whiter than the left you can thank my so called state of the art 10 mega pixel Sony camera. (piece of junk)

 

 

My order status just updated today for the invoice with this book in it. It isn't marked safe/shipped yet, so I believe the grade could still change but it is showing a 9.6 SP trimmed. Mike didn't have anything to do with the trimming, he just corrected some sloppy color touching. I don't know if the book would have got a SP without Mike's help, but it certainly kept it from coming back as SA.

 

Great work Mike!!!

 

Now I've just got to find some sales data for a DD#5 restored 9.6 so I can put a value on this thing.

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Hero Restoration

Hero Restoration

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Book 21 Minor correction

 

 

This book was sent to me with some pre-existing restoration to the top edge where the green meets the red. The top edge has a small piece missing and was repaired with a small solid piece then overlapped with a larger textured piece. Between the textured surface and off color match the work was very noticeable. The owner was not interested in any major re-work of the area but was hoping I could get the color match closer then it was. I was able to re-color touch the area and make the surface smoother but it still has a little surface differential so I was only partially successful in blending the area.

 

While I was at it I hand pressed out a beat up lower edge on the front of the book, which otherwise was a very stunning book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMG_0001x2.jpg

 

ba4.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ba2-1.jpg

 

 

If you are wondering why the image on the right looks whiter than the left you can thank my so called state of the art 10 mega pixel Sony camera. (piece of junk)

 

 

My order status just updated today for the invoice with this book in it. It isn't marked safe/shipped yet, so I believe the grade could still change but it is showing a 9.6 SP trimmed. Mike didn't have anything to do with the trimming, he just corrected some sloppy color touching. I don't know if the book would have got a SP without Mike's help, but it certainly kept it from coming back as SA.

 

Great work Mike!!!

 

Now I've just got to find some sales data for a DD#5 restored 9.6 so I can put a value on this thing.

 

Yeah, I suspected trimming on the book but wasn't sure because the only clues were the perfect edge's considering there was the missing piece repair along the top edge.

 

I sent a PM with some sales data from GPAnalysis for you Alan.

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Hero Restoration

Hero Restoration

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Amazing Job!! I can't believe what you did with the back cover!

 

I am glad you like it. :)

 

I am so glad you decided to post the bigger scans...i am repeating myself as I have many times in this tread.

 

awesome job :applause:

 

how does CGC note the pages washing? Obviously if submitted, the book would have notes like cover cleaned, color touches, reinforced, etc...I am just curious on how the washing of the pages will be noted.

 

TIA

 

I am just really shy about the fine details of my results but I will be posting larger scans from now on I guess.

 

From what I am told if the washing of the pages results in the page quality (ex. OW-W) is improved then CGC might add a note that says pages lightened. Some have said it's because it has been lightened while others say it just means they have been washed. How CGC can tell either has been done I have no clue.

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Transplant

Transplant

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I must say that I am very impressed with the progress that you've made since joining. That includes technique and philosophical approach to conservation/restoration.

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Hero Restoration

Hero Restoration

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Book 23 Nowhere to go but up !

 

The reason for the title for this book is because when I received it I could see that it was already restored badly. It was an extensive amateur done quite some time ago and grades around a 1.5 Fair+.

Since it was a EA I felt that whatever I could do for the book had to raise its value since it was already in restored status, very low grade and done very amateurish. Let me show you what I mean, here is what I initially saw.

 

 

 

IMG_0001-1.jpg

 

IMG_0002-1.jpg

 

 

 

So let’s list what we can see from the scans: The top and bottom of the spine have piece fill with ink pen color touch which bleed through the cover. We also have a bad dust/dirt shadow on the front cover and severe staining on the back cover. Something else I noticed, the cover is much shorter than the pages and is even more noticeable on the back cover. Now I know that it’s not uncommon for the cover to be a little short but this seemed to be too much and considering the amateur restore work I think it was trimmed. I also noticed that the DC logo was missing the top edge and when I compared this cover to some other scans I found the top art work was much closer to the edge on this book. Keep this in mind because I decided to do something about this problem later in my restore process.

Next I went to remove the cover from the pages and I noticed a very odd thing. On the outside of the cover I could see two staples but when I looked inside the centerfold there was four staples. Whoever restored this book left the original staples holding the pages together and then stapled the cover to the pages with two more staples. If you think that’s bad just wait because it gets worse.

 

 

I apologize if this is getting real wordy but there is so much to cover on this book and I don’t want you to miss out on the whole story.

I removed the two staples holding the cover on and here is what I could see:

 

 

 

 

DSC03705.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

DSC03706.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

DSC03707.jpg

 

Yikes, not very pretty is it? It’s hard to tell but I believe that conservation tape was used to fill the missing paper area and then either some thin mending tape or mending tissue was used along the spine.

So you are probably thinking this is the worst part right? Oh no, it gets even worse. Take a look at the cover from these two angles and see if you can see something wrong with the spine:

 

 

 

DSC03710.jpg

 

 

 

 

DSC03709.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

If you guessed that it looks like there is a seam at the back cover and the spine you are correct. There is some kind of marriage going on here but I can’t tell at this point what the married part is and what is original. You would think it is obvious but further investigation revealed a even more startling discovery.

Take a look at this photo where I start to separate the seam to get a better look:

 

 

 

 

 

DSC03715.jpg

 

Can you see what I saw? The spine overlaps the front cover just enough that it covers a little bit of the art work. You will see later in this post that I had to recreate a lot of art work and along the spine and there was almost a ¼ inch added that was missing. So what does this all mean? It means that the spine itself is not the original spine. This is what I know for sure, whether that back cover is married I can’t be certain but I do think it is possible. So that is most of the bad news but there is just a little extra bonus amateur work to show.

 

 

DSC03712.jpg

 

 

 

 

DSC03713.jpg

 

This is the first wrap and a piece was replaced. You can see some bad bleed through and the paper color doesn’t match. Lots of work to do and now we can get to the good stuff.

 

 

 

Here is what the cover looked like after I removed the existing restoration:

 

 

 

 

DSC03751.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

DSC03748.jpg

 

 

 

 

The gap you see between the front and back cover is approximately how much paper I will have to leaf cast in place. I will have to leaf cast about 1/8 inch along the top and bottom edge to get the cover the right size again and to fill in the front cover corners.

 

 

 

Now it’s time to get to the fun stuff, I washed the cover, leaf casted it and color touch. Here is what it ended up looking like:

 

 

 

AC61ba3.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

Now before I show you the back I wanted to show you this:

 

 

 

anomoly.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

See how in the top image there is some grey spots? This is my scaner acting weird becuase it does not look like this in hand even under a magnifier. The bottom half is what it really looks like so keep that in mind when you look at the next comparison.

 

 

 

AC61ba4.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

AC61ba6.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AC61ba7.jpg

 

 

 

 

DSC03894c.jpg

 

 

 

DSC03895.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here you will see what I think was foxing almost completely removed from the pages:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AC61ba8.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AC61ba1.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AC61ba2.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now in the interest of full exposure Here are the full size scans which I feel shows more than it does in hand:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMG_0005.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMG_0003.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

would like to recap with what I am happy with and what I am not happy with.

 

 

 

What I like: The cover is what I would consider the right height now. Nearly all the color touch went as I hoped. I was really worried about the FRBC and the FTLC but I think they came out good. I also think the spine is my best work to date. The round part is nearly smooth and consistent without the art or black line looking distorted. I think the staples came out really good and clean and look just right to me. I also was glad I was able to recreate the top edge of the DC logo; such a small curved line concerned me. I am glad I was able to remove as much of the dust shadow as I did and the owner wanted to forgo color touching the white to keep it from being to heavy on color touch so I left as it is.

 

 

 

What I don’t like: On the back cover I ended up with what look like a few printers creases. This is due to the cover expanding and contracting during the leaf cast process. I am working on this problem and hope to have it worked out soon. I am also not completely satisfied with the repair on the first page. It’s not bad but I could have been better. That’s about it except some little imperfections, I really could pick the work apart but I know it will get better because I am never satisfied and also looking for ways to improve my work.

 

I hope you have enjoyed this latest addition to my progress and can’t wait to show you more books.

 

 

 

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buttock

buttock

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Posted

Very nicely done. It's impressive to see how far you've come.

 

One question though, it looks like you're using quite a bit of paint for your touch ups in white areas. I can still see texture in them. Is this something you've considered for improvement or investigation?

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Hero Restoration

Hero Restoration

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Wonderful job!

 

Thanks bud !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Very nicely done. It's impressive to see how far you've come.

 

One question though, it looks like you're using quite a bit of paint for your touch ups in white areas. I can still see texture in them. Is this something you've considered for improvement or investigation?

 

I believe what you are mainly seeing is a results of the leaf casted paper , so between that and the fact I have to color touch the leaf casted area is what is causing that textured look. I am working on improving that as I won't be satisfied until it looks as close to perfect as I believe it can look.

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Hero Restoration

Hero Restoration

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Wow - that's a real transformation! Great work... nice to see some beaten up rags resurrected from the dead.

 

Thank you for the reply; I really felt this book was a no brainer when it comes to restoration candidates.

There is no way it is a good idea to perform restoration on a already high grade book and there can even be a debate on whether to do it on a low grade book unless it is at great risk of coming apart. This book already had very amateur restore and so doing the repairs better and taking further steps to make sure it last longer was why I was excited to work on it.

 

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FFB

FFB

Posted
Posted

Amazing how times have changed in six years. Six years ago, restoration was largely viewed in this hobby as a verboten, taboo topic that only a few arcane practitioners knew anything about. The efforts of a few board members in doing research, conducting experiments (remember when Kenny ironed his comic book to try his first pressing experiment, lo those many years ago?) showing what restoration is (and isn't) and what it can (and can't) do has gone a long way toward calming down the unwarranted hysteria over restoration of comics.

 

And that warms the cockles of my heart. :cloud9:

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FFB

FFB

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Oh, and PS, good job on the Adventure Comics #61. You still have a lot to learn to iron out some of the kinks (as you pointed out), but the job you did is within shouting distance of similar jobs I've seen from other, known professionals in the field over the past decade. Your foundation of knowledge and proper conservation/restoration techniques is miles ahead of where it was when we met you, and that is great.

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