Binding books in human skin ...
Binding books in human skin ...
The cure for what ails you
Re: Binding books in human skin ...
Being something of an amateur bookbinder myself (part of a childhood repairing textbooks from a school that grossly misappropriated its funding 
) I am not impressed in the least with human skin as a binding material. Compared to almost any other binding human hide is too thin and fragile for much use, becomes brittle without precise treatments, has far too much subcutaneous fat and may 'sweat' oils even after tanning.
My prefered covering medium for books these days is a 'leather' upholstery material-steer or goat leather that has been thinned for the maximum number of profitable layers per square foot.The material is weak enough that it must be bonded to a thin but durable cloth layer for strength and durability. This same material is often sewn backing-to-backing in order to make very inexpensive 'leather' belts.
Other bookbinding preferences to human leather include actual, thick leather (needs periodic treatment to prevent cracking) actual cloth with clear laccqer for waterproofing, cut plastic and vinyl-all are IMHO superior to human skin for binding pages-even the original (non-human) parchment, doubled and glued/sewn to the original folio would be a better choice.
For those of you wondering about my knowledge of human-skin tanning, i've done extensive research in both the taxidermy and funeral industries in the past and retain the trivia.-
(Protip: for any Forumites who may still be in High School or College, if the subject matter for your term papers areinteresting enough, many grammatical errors will be overlooked)
My actual 'hands-on' research to date has been confined to my ill-defined carpentry projects in the backyard-power tools and I don't mix well...
) I am not impressed in the least with human skin as a binding material. Compared to almost any other binding human hide is too thin and fragile for much use, becomes brittle without precise treatments, has far too much subcutaneous fat and may 'sweat' oils even after tanning.My prefered covering medium for books these days is a 'leather' upholstery material-steer or goat leather that has been thinned for the maximum number of profitable layers per square foot.The material is weak enough that it must be bonded to a thin but durable cloth layer for strength and durability. This same material is often sewn backing-to-backing in order to make very inexpensive 'leather' belts.
Other bookbinding preferences to human leather include actual, thick leather (needs periodic treatment to prevent cracking) actual cloth with clear laccqer for waterproofing, cut plastic and vinyl-all are IMHO superior to human skin for binding pages-even the original (non-human) parchment, doubled and glued/sewn to the original folio would be a better choice.
For those of you wondering about my knowledge of human-skin tanning, i've done extensive research in both the taxidermy and funeral industries in the past and retain the trivia.-
(Protip: for any Forumites who may still be in High School or College, if the subject matter for your term papers areinteresting enough, many grammatical errors will be overlooked)
My actual 'hands-on' research to date has been confined to my ill-defined carpentry projects in the backyard-power tools and I don't mix well...
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"Not Yet".