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Restoring the Family Bible - Peter Goodwin

Updated: Apr 29


Video from Janette Miller


Restoring the Family Bible - Peter Goodwin

"Peter Goodwin was the last journeyman bookbinder. He worked at his craft for over 64 years and was a true master. I worked for him for three months in 2003. Watching a master craftsman at work was an amazing experience.

iMovie 2 and small video cameras had just become available and because I was sure to forget all he had taught me I wanted a record to keep for my own use

Over a few days, I filmed him restoring an old bible. I had just bought a new Mac computer with iMovie 2 which my daughter and I had experimented with video editing. It was not easy but we did it.

After I had viewed the material I thought why not try to edit it? So I did, again for my own use. Then along came DVDs Create Space I asked Peter if I could share it with the world. It became a best seller for many years and then DVDs were obsolete and so was bookbinding, Brittle Book syndrome meant that old books could not be rebound as the acid in the paper was turning all books to dust.

I had many requests to put the series Bookbinding with Peter Goodwin up on YouTube but I had failed to keep up technically and had no way of playing the DVDs on my computer. Then I had the idea of having them transferred to a . MPG format for YouTube. which I have done so that once again Peter can share his craft for posterity.

Regretfully this first video failed to include the last few shots and the credits but I am still uploading it. When I send a new batch to be digitized I shall ask for this one to be re-done.

I do hope you enjoy this series. Seriously do not bother to try this as it is now not worth the effort unless your book was bound before 1830 but it is still wonderful to watch an expert. Enjoy." from the video introduction



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