There was thread (https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=206737) started over in the paper props section, in 2014 by a now banned person, asking about a book you see really briefly in The Mummy Returns (2001). The short version of the 9 page thread is that after a few of us did a tonne of research we found the pages you see are completely made up for the film, out of various sources. We also put together as close as facsimile of the pages you see on screen as possible.
I’d spent so long researching, buying the reference books the prop department used originally and creating new sets of hieroglyphs that I felt I had to have a copy of the book in my collection. Book binding is quite fun too
The book is a half leather (ie spine and corners, with paper on the covers). You don’t see the inside covers of the book, but I decided I wanted it to have a nice contrast to the darker exterior and chose to use an historic German designed orange and red marbled paper. I couldn’t find anything close to the paper used on the outside covers, so I commissioned something similar.
Here are some of the WIP photos I took. Once I had printed out the four pages I had made content for, I folded those and all the blank pages to form 4 page signatures:
They were then all marked for the holes to be punched in them (Cthulhu cuneiform tablets make great paperweights):
Then lots of sewing happened, using waxed linen thread:
Once the textblock was all sewn together I clamped it in my bookpress and gave its spine two coats of PVA glue. I also glued on two headbanding strips. I didn’t take a photo of that.
Whilst the glue was drying I started making the spine. I cut a piece of leather big enough that it covered the spine and about a quarter of each cover. I also made the cover spine out of bookboard, with bookboard stuck on for ridges, and gave it a gentle curve:
The leather was then glued onto the curved spine and tied up and let dry:
Once it’d dried I also glued on the two covers:
I cut out leather corners for both front and back (the stack looks big because I was making two books at once) and stuck those to the bookboard covers:
I then cut out the cover papers and glued those to the two covers:
Whilst that was drying I cut out two marbled pages for the front and back of the textblock, these are then what are glued on to the cover to join everything together, once they’d glued on I added a piece of Kraft paper over the spine and the around a third to half of the liner pages to reinforce everything:
Finally the marbled inside cover pages were glued onto the outer covers and left to dry with some heavy weights on them. I’m not going to post the finished book until next week, because I don’t want its new owner seeing this and it ruining the surprise. So more photos to follow soon
I’d spent so long researching, buying the reference books the prop department used originally and creating new sets of hieroglyphs that I felt I had to have a copy of the book in my collection. Book binding is quite fun too
The book is a half leather (ie spine and corners, with paper on the covers). You don’t see the inside covers of the book, but I decided I wanted it to have a nice contrast to the darker exterior and chose to use an historic German designed orange and red marbled paper. I couldn’t find anything close to the paper used on the outside covers, so I commissioned something similar.
Here are some of the WIP photos I took. Once I had printed out the four pages I had made content for, I folded those and all the blank pages to form 4 page signatures:
They were then all marked for the holes to be punched in them (Cthulhu cuneiform tablets make great paperweights):
Then lots of sewing happened, using waxed linen thread:
Once the textblock was all sewn together I clamped it in my bookpress and gave its spine two coats of PVA glue. I also glued on two headbanding strips. I didn’t take a photo of that.
Whilst the glue was drying I started making the spine. I cut a piece of leather big enough that it covered the spine and about a quarter of each cover. I also made the cover spine out of bookboard, with bookboard stuck on for ridges, and gave it a gentle curve:
The leather was then glued onto the curved spine and tied up and let dry:
Once it’d dried I also glued on the two covers:
I cut out leather corners for both front and back (the stack looks big because I was making two books at once) and stuck those to the bookboard covers:
I then cut out the cover papers and glued those to the two covers:
Whilst that was drying I cut out two marbled pages for the front and back of the textblock, these are then what are glued on to the cover to join everything together, once they’d glued on I added a piece of Kraft paper over the spine and the around a third to half of the liner pages to reinforce everything:
Finally the marbled inside cover pages were glued onto the outer covers and left to dry with some heavy weights on them. I’m not going to post the finished book until next week, because I don’t want its new owner seeing this and it ruining the surprise. So more photos to follow soon
