Complete Restoration Experiments

[Warlord]

 

I'm just blown away by some of your 2011 results! :applause:

[Hero Restoration]

Very cool recap, Mike. There's two things that stand out to me:

• You have a mission (and it seems you are on your way to achieve that) and
  
• You are never satisfied with your work and continue to do better.

 

There's nothing worse than complacency. Keep up the good work!

 

Well said.

I enjoy looking at your threads Mike and couldn't agree more... keep up the good work.

 

I'm just blown away by some of your 2011 results! :applause:

 

Thanks guys, wait till you see my latest experiment, replacing a missing double sided coupon on a cover using leaf casting and ink transfer technology. I hope to post the book sometime tommorrow if all goes well with the reassembly.

[Hero Restoration]

Book 24 Clipping coupons may save you money but in comic books that was a terrible idea!

 

This book has been one of my toughest challenges to date. The book is missing a coupon out of the back cover and has a coupon on both sides. Since it is in an off-while area, my options for repair are limited. If it was available on a worthless book I could have considered grabbing the coupon from another book and hoping the off-white matched. I could also have considered printing off the double sided coupon but the off-white would have been even more unlikely to match. The printer cannot print off-white, instead it creates the illusion of off-white by relying on the white paper itself and then using a combination of yellow, red and blue dots. Besides the drawback of the off-white there is another issue I have with doing it that way. While it would be hard to notice in a picture or scan, in hand a graft would be very noticeable and due to alignment issues would have had to be two pieces stuck together.

 

For the last year or so I have been trying to come up with a way to make it look as real as possible in hand and have had many failed ideas. The basic premise goes as follows, Leaf cast new paper where the coupon is missing, color touch the paper so it matches the rest of the off-white paper and then apply some type of ink transfer to the leaf casted color touch paper to create a seamless affect the would feel like the real thing even when running your fingers over it and have natural flexibility.

What you are about to see is my first real attempt at doing it the way I finally settled on. In addition, I also had to do some leaf casting to the page corners using vintage paper and match it as closely as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also think this process of replacing the coupon could be used to replace the missing 1/3 of the cover as a result of dealer returns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I Like: Although this coupon replacement didn’t come out perfect I am happy with it considering it was my first real attempt. I feel the leaf casting on the pages matched well and the 10 cent replacement isn’t too bad either.

 

 

 

What I don’t like: I am still having problems with wrinkles and creases as a result of leaf casting and repairs. I think I have figured out a solution to the problem but only time and different books will tell me if I am on the right track. The white letters with the red background on the coupon look rough; I think that will just take practice to improve upon. For some reason I had a difficult time matching the off-white on this book but I am not sure why as that has been going well on the last few books.

 

[etanick]

fantastic....love to see the transformation in the books as well as your skills. (thumbs u

 

I think your CT skills are not there yet with plenty of room for improvement. The interior repair job is great.

[Joeo42]

Impressive work.

 

[JazzMan]

Brilliant!

[MagnetoWasRight]

I'm new to the arena of restoration but I've bought my first book with some professional tear seals. This has peaked my interest in resto and I am truly amazed at these last few pics. I had no idea that kind of repair could be done to a book. Amazing job.

[*paull*]

Your work is definitely improving... nice job on the Adventure 61. Also impressed with the leaf casting on the Ghost Rider.

[Hero Restoration]

fantastic....love to see the transformation in the books as well as your skills. (thumbs u

 

I think your CT skills are not there yet with plenty of room for improvement. The interior repair job is great.

 

Yes, unfortunately there is more room for improvement in my CT skills than I would have liked by now. It's frustrating how half the time I feel the CT comes out perfect and the other half of the time it is a mess.

 

Impressive work.

 

 

Brilliant!

 

 

 

I'm new to the arena of restoration but I've bought my first book with some professional tear seals. This has peaked my interest in resto and I am truly amazed at these last few pics. I had no idea that kind of repair could be done to a book. Amazing job.

 

Neither did I for the first year I was learning. Sure I knew I could take a piece from another book or use a photo copy but they wouldn't have looked very convincing. Once I started to learn about leaf casting I knew there just had to be a better way to recreate missing coupons and large pieces of the cover where text is involved.

 

Your work is definitely improving... nice job on the Adventure 61. Also impressed with the leaf casting on the Ghost Rider.

 

 

 

I realize I still have a ways to go but all these comments are very encouraging, thank you all very much.

[Kahnadah]

WOW! This thread has eaten up 3 hours! I'm thinking of doing a paper conservation course at a university (yep, even at my advanced age!) and this has sealed it. To uni I go!

 

If you're looking for more golden age to work on, I have some beaten up books I'd like to get consolodated. Brittle bits, parts missing, detatched covers, lotsa meat to cut into.

 

James

[User 01001010]

mike,

 

what exactly is leaf casting?

[Hero Restoration]

mike,

 

what exactly is leaf casting?

 

Leaf casting creates new paper in the areas where the original paper is missing. What you do is set a cover in the leaf caster, make up some paper slurry and pour it in the caster which uses suction to pull the pulp into the area that is missing and uses hydrogen bonding to blend in and attach to the original paper. When done the new paper looks and feels like the original paper and it is very difficult to tell that the original paper was ever missing. This will work on everything from large missing pieces to small gaps between tears.

[User 01001010]

mike,

 

what exactly is leaf casting?

 

Leaf casting creates new paper in the areas where the original paper is missing. What you do is set a cover in the leaf caster, make up some paper slurry and pour it in the caster which uses suction to pull the pulp into the area that is missing and uses hydrogen bonding to blend in and attach to the original paper. When done the new paper looks and feels like the original paper and it is very difficult to tell that the original paper was ever missing. This will work on everything from large missing pieces to small gaps between tears.

 

 

thanks mike! i'll have to look around and see if i have any books that you could practice on.

 

have you delved into repro covers too? i have a few coverless books too.

[DailySuperpower]

Yes, unfortunately there is more room for improvement in my CT skills than I would have liked by now. It's frustrating how half the time I feel the CT comes out perfect and the other half of the time it is a mess.

 

What are you having difficulty with as far as CT? Is it color matching or the blending of the color touch into the existing art?

 

 

[Hero Restoration]

Yes, unfortunately there is more room for improvement in my CT skills than I would have liked by now. It's frustrating how half the time I feel the CT comes out perfect and the other half of the time it is a mess.

 

What are you having difficulty with as far as CT? Is it color matching or the blending of the color touch into the existing art?

 

 

A little of both really. Some colors are just hard for me to match and some of that probably is a result of the core base colors I am working with. The only difficulty with blending is when I am dealing with dot half tones since a solid color is different and can show easily. I usually only get one shot at most of it since CT is not so easy to remove to start over.

[Hero Restoration]

mike,

 

what exactly is leaf casting?

 

Leaf casting creates new paper in the areas where the original paper is missing. What you do is set a cover in the leaf caster, make up some paper slurry and pour it in the caster which uses suction to pull the pulp into the area that is missing and uses hydrogen bonding to blend in and attach to the original paper. When done the new paper looks and feels like the original paper and it is very difficult to tell that the original paper was ever missing. This will work on everything from large missing pieces to small gaps between tears.

 

 

thanks mike! i'll have to look around and see if i have any books that you could practice on.

 

have you delved into repro covers too? i have a few coverless books too.

 

No I have not, I have seen some of repro's in hand and while they look ok they just don't feel real and they aren’t of coarse. Regular printers just don’t do a exact job of duplicating and the off-white recreation is just a mix of yellow red and blue dots, not to mention the paper doesn’t feel right. I am not really interesting in getting into repro covers but more interested in taking real covers that might be missing half of the front cover and recreating them with the previously mentioned processes.

[DailySuperpower]

Yes, unfortunately there is more room for improvement in my CT skills than I would have liked by now. It's frustrating how half the time I feel the CT comes out perfect and the other half of the time it is a mess.

 

What are you having difficulty with as far as CT? Is it color matching or the blending of the color touch into the existing art?

 

 

A little of both really. Some colors are just hard for me to match and some of that probably is a result of the core base colors I am working with. The only difficulty with blending is when I am dealing with dot half tones since a solid color is different and can show easily. I usually only get one shot at most of it since CT is not so easy to remove to start over.

 

If you don't already have one you should definitely pick up a book on color theory or color mixing for artists.

 

When I paint I only really use 5-10 colors to mix everything. Granted I'm not trying to color match precisely, but I do paint realistic still lifes. For comics I'd imagine you could use a fairly limited group of paints to get everything as long as you understood what went into making each printed color.

 

It might help to take a few worthless books from various time periods and just pick out areas of the cover to paint over. It would also help to have several throw-away covers(check out the Half Priced Books clearance bins) on hand to test your CT colors on before you do anything to the books you're working on. Even just painting on the edge of an index card, letting it dry, and comparing it to the area you're trying to match.

 

As for matching half tone dots, what if you could transfer a grey half tone matrix onto the paper, and then paint over that? It would be a little tedious, but with some work it could be a useful process. You could even use something other than a brush, maybe a ballpoint pen dipped in the paint every few dots, to apply the color.

 

Just some thoughts.

 

 

[Ze-man]

Yes, unfortunately there is more room for improvement in my CT skills than I would have liked by now. It's frustrating how half the time I feel the CT comes out perfect and the other half of the time it is a mess.

 

What are you having difficulty with as far as CT? Is it color matching or the blending of the color touch into the existing art?

 

 

A little of both really. Some colors are just hard for me to match and some of that probably is a result of the core base colors I am working with. The only difficulty with blending is when I am dealing with dot half tones since a solid color is different and can show easily. I usually only get one shot at most of it since CT is not so easy to remove to start over.

 

Mike, I think you will find that anyone CT'ing a large half tone or dot matrix area will simply try and blend the CT in a manner that fools the eye rather then recreating the actual dot pattern. As I am sure you have found, even when you take great efforts to work "small", it can become clunky, quickly. Especially over a large area.

 

Not to say that you shouldn't try and build layers of similar colors, with various techniques to create the look you want. But don't beat yourself up because you cannot CT in half tones by hand! Nobody can.

 

Although your comment about CT not being easy to remove just set back the archival aspect of resto 10 years.

 

 

I kid of course.

 

 

You work has improved this past year, and you should be proud. You seem to have dialed in the aesthetic aspect of making a restored comic look pretty, next comes making it feel natural as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ze-man]

I am not really interesting in getting into repro covers but more interested in taking real covers that might be missing half of the front cover and recreating them with the previously mentioned processes.

 

Ultimately recreated material, is recreated material in the eyes of most collectors.

 

Grafting on the missing material from a donor copy is the best case scenario, and one that seems popular because it keeps the cover as close to original as possible. Everything else falls under the umbrella of "recreation" no matter how spiffy that recreation might be.

 

A better application of your transfer would be in replacing lost, small text. But that presents a whole different set of problems considering size and alignment issues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hero Restoration]

Yes, unfortunately there is more room for improvement in my CT skills than I would have liked by now. It's frustrating how half the time I feel the CT comes out perfect and the other half of the time it is a mess.

 

What are you having difficulty with as far as CT? Is it color matching or the blending of the color touch into the existing art?

 

 

A little of both really. Some colors are just hard for me to match and some of that probably is a result of the core base colors I am working with. The only difficulty with blending is when I am dealing with dot half tones since a solid color is different and can show easily. I usually only get one shot at most of it since CT is not so easy to remove to start over.

 

If you don't already have one you should definitely pick up a book on color theory or color mixing for artists.

 

When I paint I only really use 5-10 colors to mix everything. Granted I'm not trying to color match precisely, but I do paint realistic still lifes. For comics I'd imagine you could use a fairly limited group of paints to get everything as long as you understood what went into making each printed color.

 

It might help to take a few worthless books from various time periods and just pick out areas of the cover to paint over. It would also help to have several throw-away covers(check out the Half Priced Books clearance bins) on hand to test your CT colors on before you do anything to the books you're working on. Even just painting on the edge of an index card, letting it dry, and comparing it to the area you're trying to match.

 

As for matching half tone dots, what if you could transfer a grey half tone matrix onto the paper, and then paint over that? It would be a little tedious, but with some work it could be a useful process. You could even use something other than a brush, maybe a ballpoint pen dipped in the paint every few dots, to apply the color.

 

Just some thoughts.

 

 

Thanks for your input as I appreciate it very much. I think I just need one piece of information and then I could match everything exactly. As I understand it the printers only use four colors, yellow, red, blue and black. The problem is I don’t know how to get in acrylic paints the equivalent shade of these colors. If anyone know that information and a brand or supplier then I could mix the colors to get the right match. I know red and blue make purple but if my red and blue are different than the printers than the final color doesn’t match quite right.