See How a Japanese Craftsman Restores a Battered Old Book

No doubt many of you have a treasured book that you’ve read countless times, but numerous re-reads can take their toll, especially on old books. Those of you beginning to worry about the battered spine and dog-eared pages of your favourite novel will be interested to see this skilled Japanese craftsman restore a seriously tattered 1000 page dictionary back to its former glory.

As MyModernMet reports, an episode of a show called Shuri, Bakaseru (translation: The Fascinating Craftsman) featured a very talented artisan named Nobuo Okano, who specializes in restoring old books. In just a 10 minute segment, he showed how he restored the old English-to-Japanese dictionary. The dictionary belonged to his customer as a student and, now the customer’s daughter is beginning college, he wanted to have it restored so he can pass it on to her.

Firstly, Okano begins by cleaning the old glue from the book’s spine and then repairs damaged pages, including the maps. They’re glued onto new paper and thus given a solid base. The most tedious part of the restoration sees Okano unfold the book’s bent page corners with tweezers, he then iron each one out. To freshen up the tips of the pages that are stained by ink, Okano uses a guillotine book cutter to trim the pages and remove the stains.

The last step is creating a new cover for the book. Okano uses the salvaged title from the original cover and puts it onto the new one. The dictionary now looks as good as new and is ready to be returned to his grateful, and no doubt very impressed, customer.