Book Arts Mania: "Australian Reverse Piano Hinge"

"Not every act of art creates something special, but it creates something. It is the act of art that is important, not the result." Michael L. Goodman

Last week I was browsing some Pinterest bloggers and rediscovered Alisa Golden's Making Handmade Books blog. I have two of her books, Making Handmade Books: 100+ Bindings, Structures and Forms and Expressive Handmade Books in my studio library.

This particular blog post from way back in 2019 was on a linked hinge binding that she created from a structure she had dreamed about. I never dream of book structures, but maybe a new envelope design though. I like how the spine looks like a piano hinge binding, but it does not have any rods, sticks, or other apparatus holding the pages together. I thought I would give this modified piano hinge structure a try.

However, on the blog sidebar was a link to one of her posts from 2012 where she showed a binding from Australia called Flat-Style Australian Reverse Piano Hinge. The spine of this binding is also pleasing to my eye, and that is the binding I decided to tackle first.

I made three books with this binding. I used some signatures that I had folded long ago for books I did not get around to binding. These premade signatures came in handy. Two of the books are 4 1/2 inches by 5 3/4 inches. The third book is 6 1/4 inches by 9 1/4 inches.

I like the look of the spines very much. I modified the binding of the book on the left. The binding is created with an accordion-folded strip of paper. The instructions for this binding are in the link above.

This photo shows the reversed [inside the book] piano hinge created by the mountain fold. The "lock" of the hinge is a strip of paper the width of the mountain fold and a bit longer than the width of the paper strip. Because of the hinge, the binding edge of the book is thicker than the fore-edge. This allows for ephemera or small art pieces like ATCs to be attached to these pages without the fore-edge being thicker than the spine. 

This shows the space between the signatures. I like how the pages lie flat when the book is open as with a Coptic stitch.

The third book was constructed of thick, stained papers I made at least ten years ago and never had the motivation to sew together with a Coptic stitch. Now I have used them.