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This information is reprinted from the For Beginners column of Hand Papermaking Newsletter #79 (July, 2007).
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Wet Binding
For book makers out there who want a break from needle,
thread, and paste, I introduce the wet-bound book. Using
basic sheet-forming skills alongside special couching
methods, you can create codices and accordion books bound by
pulp alone.
You will need to couch your sheets onto heavy-weight
pellon. Scraps of old bed sheets will work as well, but will
slow down the drying process. Start by pulling a sheet of
paper and couching it onto a base sheet of pellon. Having a
felt or two at the very bottom of your pile will aid your
couching. The codex structure will have a wide spine along
one side of the book, much like a Japanese stab-bound book,
so you will need to decide how wide you want this spine to
be. The narrower it is, the more accurate you will have to
be in the placement of your couching. For simplicity, let’s
assume a one-inch spine. Place a second sheet of pellon over
the first sheet, leaving a one-inch strip of your first wet
sheet uncovered on the left-hand side. This strip is where
the spine of your book will be; the sheets you couch will
fuse along this strip once they have been pressed.
 Couch your second sheet directly over the first. Do not
worry that the two wet sheets of paper are touching along
the left edge: this is the point! Lay another pellon down,
lining it up with the previous pellon. Continue in this
manner until you have couched as many sheets as you want in
your book. All the sheets will touch one another along the
left side, with pellon separating them on the right. [See
Diagram] When placing your final piece of pellon over the
last page, allow it to cover the whole book. The whole book
should then be placed between felts and boards and given a
light pressing (about the same pressing you would give to
Eastern-style sheets).
Your wet-bound book will require care in drying. Place
the pressed book between dry felts or blotters and dry under
weight. After the first day of drying, take the book out and
replace the pellon with dry sheets or paper towels, change
the blotters or felts, and place back under weight. Exchange
wet interleaving for dry periodically until the book is
completely dry. The more frequent the exchange, the more
quickly your book will dry. Aim for one or two changes per
day. (Note: the thickness of the book makes it unsuitable
for a drying box; however, a fan aimed towards your drying
stack may aid the drying process.)
 An accordion book structure can be made similarly.
Instead of leaving an exposed strip on the left side of each
sheet, alternate the exposed sides. [See Diagram] Thus,
if you leave a strip exposed along the left side of your
first sheet, offsetting your pellon to the right and
couching your second sheet directly over the first, then
your second pellon should completely cover the left edge of
the book, leaving a strip along the right side exposed to
fuse to the third wet sheet. Alternate the pellon placement
as you move through the book, again covering the entire book
with your final pellon.
For the most elegant results, you will want to set up a
good registration system to ensure that you couch your
sheets directly on top of one another and position your
pellon evenly. One method is to lay string longer than the
size of your page and pellon across the bottom of your
working stack, marking both the edge of the page and the
one-inch spine.
Pockets and folders can be created in the sheets using
similar methods. For example, pull a sheet smaller than the
size of your page. Let’s say this sheet is 4 x 4 inches. Now
cut a piece of pellon to prevent the pocket from fusing. You
will want three edges of this small sheet to fuse to the
page behind it, so you could cut the pellon to 3 x 5 inches.
Place the pellon on the base sheet and couch your 4 x 4
sheet on top of this pellon so that three sides of the
pocket land around the pellon. A strip of pellon will be
left uncovered, sticking out the pocket’s top and ensuring
that you have a way to access this pocket. Once the book is
dry, you can simply pull this pellon out. (Another note on
drying: you will want to leave the pellon in this pocket
undisturbed throughout the drying process. Do not exchange
it for drier materials or you are likely to make a mess of
your book!)
Also note that you can work imagery into your book using
stenciling or pulp painting as you would on any sheet of
paper. The only trick here is working on the verso of the
page. It can be done! You just have to reverse your thinking
a little bit, placing the imagery onto your pellon before
you couch the page on which that image will appear. Whatever
layer you want on top will be laid down on the pellon first.
Thus if I am pulp painting a black squiggle on top of a grey
triangle on an orange page, I will first paint my squiggle
onto the pellon, then paint or stencil my grey triangle, and
finally place the orange sheet on top. I can then build up
the image I want on the front of the page (i.e., orange
sheet with grey triangle on top and black squiggle painted
over that).
Once you master these few simple principles (and get your
brain doing the gymnastics of flipping these images around)
the possibilities for structure are endless and you can
achieve the satisfaction of not only creating images
entirely of pulp, but of creating books bound entirely by
fiber.
Copyright 2007 Hand Papermaking, Inc.
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