Cleaning books? (No bleach, please!)

I recently won an ebay auction for a nice copy of the Heritage Press
edition of Saint-Simon's MEMOIRS (1959). I'm very pleased with the
overall condition of the book, but when I examine it closely, I see
that the cloth on the spine has darkened compared with the covers
(which of course have been protected by the slipcase).

Do posters have any suggestions for a simple--and safe--cleaning
procedure? Serious replies appreciated; TIA.

Jim

"Jim" wrote in message
m...
I recently won an ebay auction for a nice copy of the Heritage Press
edition of Saint-Simon's MEMOIRS (1959). I'm very pleased with the
overall condition of the book, but when I examine it closely, I see
that the cloth on the spine has darkened compared with the covers
(which of course have been protected by the slipcase).

Do posters have any suggestions for a simple--and safe--cleaning
procedure? Serious replies appreciated; TIA.

Jim

Brake fluid works wonders on cloth spines

Dear Jim,

Possibly nicotine stains? Many books I buy look filty when purchased, but
clean up very well HOWEVER, water only removes nicotine on dustwrappers with
laminate coating - I have no idea how to remove such stains from cloth and
would expect any kind of treatment to have undesirable side effects.

Cheers,

Tom L-M

"Jim" wrote in message
m...
I recently won an ebay auction for a nice copy of the Heritage Press
edition of Saint-Simon's MEMOIRS (1959). I'm very pleased with the
overall condition of the book, but when I examine it closely, I see
that the cloth on the spine has darkened compared with the covers
(which of course have been protected by the slipcase).

Do posters have any suggestions for a simple--and safe--cleaning
procedure? Serious replies appreciated; TIA.

Jim

"Jim" wrote in message
m...
overall condition of the book, but when I examine it closely, I see
that the cloth on the spine has darkened compared with the covers
(which of course have been protected by the slipcase).

Do posters have any suggestions for a simple--and safe--cleaning
procedure? Serious replies appreciated; TIA.

Surface dirt can be cleaned from cloth bindings by using bread crumbs and
rubbing it across the cloth then brushing. Chances are though that your
spine is either sun darkened or smoke darkened, and bread crumbs won't help
that. There was also a product called Absorbene, but I don't know if that
is still available.

Randy

Thanks for the thoughts so far.

Of course I'm the only one who's going to notice this, and it's not a
major problem. It was certainly not worth asking for a reduction in
the price, as my cost was *quite* fair to begin with!

My assumption is that the book "suffers" from surface grime of some
sort, not intrinsic discoloration. If the latter is the case, of
course nothing can be done. If anybidy has tips for the first
condition, please continue to post them.

Jim

"Jim" wrote
If anybidy has tips for the first condition, please continue to post them.

First boil the book in a solution of equal parts of ammonia and bleach for
about 12 hours.
Next place the book in a vat of sulphuric acid.
Then, using a pressure washer, carefully rinse the acid solution off the
book.
Dry the book using an Army surplus flame thrower.
Hope this helps!
--
General Disarray

"michael adams" wrote in message ...
"Jim" wrote in message
om...

[...]

Some well-meaning people in the group have,
with all their fussing and fretting, brought
me to a state where every day or two I check
the page edges of my newly acquired Scribners
classic to see if there is anything unusual
taking place along those page edges, if they
are smoking and bubbling or something.

So far, the only thing unusual about the page
edges is that they are actually white, something
you don't ordinarily find in seventy year old
books. Of course, I want to stress again that
I applied that bleach very carefully using q-tips
and avoiding the cloth, and I gently rinsed the page
edges with water as soon as the ink lettering
and the brown discoloration had disappeared.
Further, as I said earlier, I think the high
quality paper used by Scribners has something
to do with the success of the endeavor. Don't
attempt to do this with pulp paper pages.

If you are not a very careful person, don't try
to imitate my experiment. Some posters have
predicted disaster for the book in question.
One thing I noticed is that the dire warnings
plainy applied to someone who might have been
trying to remove a smudge or ink lettering from
a single page itself, which is not something I
would want to try. Common sense tells me that
the bleach would likely eat right through the
page! As a result, I stress again that I am
only talking about a uniform application of
bleach and water-rinse along the page-edges,
and only when the pages are gripped tightly
or clamped in a vise.

I intend periodically to report the results
of this experiment. If three months from
now I find the page edges blackened and eaten
right down to the text, I will be first to tell
you. Right now, though, the experiment still
looks like a resounding success. Cheers.


Mr. Palmer
--Posting from Room 314 in the upstairs office.

Thanks for the thoughts so far.

Of course I'm the only one who's going to notice this, and it's not a
major problem. It was certainly not worth asking for a reduction in
the price, as my cost was *quite* fair to begin with!

My assumption is that the book "suffers" from surface grime of some
sort, not intrinsic discoloration. If the latter is the case, of
course nothing can be done. If anybidy has tips for the first
condition, please continue to post them.

Jim


If indeed it is surface grime or as Tom suggested nicotine
staining, then there probably, only probably mind, should be some
evidence of the same around the front edges of the slip case as
well.

And whatever it is, presumably at present it is evenly discoloured
all over. A problem with any treatment, except a treatment to
remove small marks which completely spoil the appearance, is that
it might leave the spine looking unevenly coloured. And so even
worse than when you started. And this applies to all treatments
whether physical or chemical. And so is possibly something to
bear in mind also.

The specific problem you have is that you want to bring the
spine back to the original colour the same as the sides.

Years ago in the UK, and maybe there still is, there used to be a
product called Backus book restorer.* This was something dealers used
to slap on the bindings to brighten up jaded looking books. However
it was purely cosmetic. This would probably work on the spine of
your book - it would probably brighten it up alright. But
unfortunately it mightn't look anything like the original colour.
It might even end up lighter than the sides, or anything in
between.




michael adams

* Further details in the FAQ http://www.rcbfaq.com/

...

"Bill Palmer" wrote
Some well-meaning people in the group have,
with all their fussing and fretting, brought
me to a state where every day or two I check
the page edges of my newly acquired Scribners
classic to see if there is anything unusual
taking place along those page edges, if they
are smoking and bubbling or something.

So far, the only thing unusual about the page
edges is that they are actually white, something
you don't ordinarily find in seventy year old
books. Of course, I want to stress again that
I applied that bleach very carefully using q-tips
and avoiding the cloth, and I gently rinsed the page
edges with water as soon as the ink lettering
and the brown discoloration had disappeared.
Further, as I said earlier, I think the high
quality paper used by Scribners has something
to do with the success of the endeavor. Don't
attempt to do this with pulp paper pages.

Jesus, will you give that bleach thing a ****ing rest already Mr. Troll?
You are totally full of **** and everyone knows it.
Go back under your bridge now!
--
Bob Finnan
The Hardy Boys Unofficial Home Page
http://users.arczip.com/fwdixon
New & Out Of Print Books, Books-On-Tape, Videos, DVDs, CD-ROMs For Sale
http://users.arczip.com/fwdixon/hbsale.htm
.................................................. ....................
...

"RWF" wrote in message ...
Jesus, will you give that bleach thing a ****ing rest already Mr. Troll?
You are totally full of **** and everyone knows it.
Go back under your bridge now!

[...]

From the tenor of your earlier trolls,
Finnan, I quickly became aware that I
was dealing with a semi-intelligent
being as well as a trolling pest
and desperate Usenet non-entity.
Ranting offensively like a cretin
high on battery acid as you do above,
you simply underscore my earlier
conclusions about you, including your
mentality and motivations, conclusions
in fact set forth irrefutably in another
posting made a few minutes ago about
you. I hope every rec.collecting
books reader not only reads but archives
that post for future reference regarding
your vicious and entirely unwarranted
attacks on rec.collecting.books posters.
I say again, sir, you fool no one.
Cheers.

Mr. Palmer
Room 314 of the upstairs office.

(Jim) writes:

My assumption is that the book "suffers" from surface grime of some
sort, not intrinsic discoloration. If the latter is the case, of
course nothing can be done. If anybidy has tips for the first
condition, please continue to post them.

Is there any way to take a very tiny samples of the discolored and
non-discolored regions without producing observable damage, and then
analyze the samples to see exactly how they differ? One can do chemistry
with microscopic samples.
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.