About those books ...

On the subject of Books ....

There are several different sorts of hand made books on the market these days. Some of them are actually quite beautiful in my opinion however there are a couple of things about them that get under my skin.

Firstly many of them are ridiculously expensive. Yes they are catering for a somewhat exclusive market, but I ask you - haven't you thought it too? Some of them are simply wood painted and the prices are outrageous. I know how much wood can cost and how much paint can cost - where the rest of teh cash goes I don't know!

Some of them have bits and doodads stuck on all over and well besides looking a bit odd to me and virtually impossible to put on a shelf with anything else – they too are still outrageously priced.

Then of course there are the ones imported from overseas … well I have a problem with paying an artisan virtually nix for their work and then profiting greatly there from *shrugs*.

Secondly, I may be a bluff old traditionalist but well they mostly strike me as being .. well just TOO damn perfect. If I am going to shell out extra hard-core dollars for a handmade book I want it to bloody well LOOK HAND MADE!

Thirdly, many of them are so damn huge that they become the sort of thing you can only put on a dais for effect. They are so thick that you could sprain your wrist trying to pick it up (it has happened!!) – let alone carting the thing about like a notebook … forget that!

Well obviously by that screed you can surmise that ours tend to be thinner, not so perfect and a damn site cheaper! We also can carve on your book whatever YOU would like there – something that puts us, frankly not actually in competition with the other sorts of books on the market at all.

On the Virtues of MDF ...

Right from the beginning I settled on MDF as my medium. Now some people have expressed concern about this and I have decided here to once and for all state my reasons for this.

To begin with it is a medium that if treated well will result in a fairly fine edge and this makes it good for the sort of work I do. It is fairly light and fairly cheap which means the product remains at a reasonable end price.

Secondly, the use of MDF is so that the pieces remained affordable. I wanted pieces that I could produce that people could afford. The simple fact is that had I done pieces in exotic woods, they would have cost more and been harder to do.

The wood costs more, the scouting costs more, the work to re-thickness/clean up the wood found costs, the work is more arduous and takes longer (more cost) and well then it is defined totally and only really useful for one thing (see next paragraph). This means either the price goes up and less people can afford them or I start ripping myself off and neither option is acceptable to me.

Thirdly, virtually all of the pieces I did were for the Pagan/Occult/Witch market and the practical upshot of this is that if they were of any specific wood they would be useful only in certain ways. Specific wood = specific purpose.

What I wanted was something that did not have any hidden loading (so to speak); something that could be bought “clean” of past associations and literally be used for anything that the owner desired. A man made material composed of various types of wood is ideal to this end.

The fact that it tends to take stains outrageously well is a side effect I don't mind either! I have been constantly amused when asked: "What kind of wood is it?" to see the reactions on faces when I say: "Just MDF mate! It works fine for me (I actually DO use them!!) and so say all my customers – not one complaint yet!"

I can and have done pieces for people using wood that they have. It is understandably something that costs more but well at the end of the day it depends on how much of a stickler one is for exactly what one wants.