Milton Watkins Bookbinder

Milton Watkins Bookbinder Bookbinding, Book repair & restoration, a specialist in Bible repairs & custom binding. Leather Bind Thesis Bindings, Repairs to all types of Books.

Formerly Ballarat Bookbinding, Restoration of Old Books & Custom Binding of New Books. Specialist in Bible repairs and Restorations. Specialist Printing Including Hot Foil & Gold Blocking, Embossing & De-Bossing.

Today in my Bindery, just applied a Hollow Lining to the newly restored text block spine of an Old Family Bible that has...
13/02/2025

Today in my Bindery, just applied a Hollow Lining to the newly restored text block spine of an Old Family Bible that has all the pages repaired and spine is prepped by stripping off all the old linings of cheese cloth and paper linings that the spine originally had, glued with Animal glue around 200 years ago.

Thought I would spend a few minutes while I have a break to show you all a recent Custom Leather Binding I completed, t...
16/08/2024

Thought I would spend a few minutes while I have a break to show you all a recent Custom Leather Binding I completed, the lovely customer had a piece of Leather that had a Hand Engraved image of Wild Horses on it, and also engraved the word “Photos” to hope that one day they could stick it on a Photo Album. She contacted me and asked if I could Bind a Photo Box and incorporate this Piece of Artwork. So I bound this Kangaroo Leather Book Box, inside it has a large Duel 2 Ring Mechanism to hold Mylar photo sleeves so that many photos could be kept in the box and very easily brought out and viewed by flicking through the pages as quick as any Album, but stored away so that the photos are fully protected from any damage. Kangaroo Leather is also Gold Tooled by myself using period 19th century motifs and other decorative brass tools, on the spine are Raised Bands and more Gold De-bossed motifs. The Gold edge that looks like a Gilded page edge is very rare Italian Book Cloth with edge gold decoration using a Brass Tool from the 1870’s. The customer can’t wait to receive this and eventually hand it down to her children.

What you see here is REAL Leather Hand Bound Study Bibles, not fake or imitation Leather, you cannot buy these REAL Leat...
29/07/2024

What you see here is REAL Leather Hand Bound Study Bibles, not fake or imitation Leather, you cannot buy these REAL Leather Bindings retail anywhere in the world, only a professionally qualified Hand Bookbinder that specifically works with REAL Leather Hides that are sustainably acquired can Produce Soft Yapp Edged REAL Leather Covers.
The beauty of this is you can ethier Purchase your new Retail Study Bible and never have to purchase another again or have your well used Study Bible re-Bound with a new REAL Leather Binding just like you see here in the picture below.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a Study Bible for a lifetime, rather than replacing every decade or even sooner, maybe with theirs it’s only been a few years. The retail purchase of a Study Bible gives you a Machine Bound Bible made in India or China mostly and they can only use imitation Leather, and have done so for 100 years, the cover is usually the part that fails first. Give your Study Bible a chance, save all those highlighted texts and underlinings and all the margin comments for life, it’s the worst to have to start over again. I know, I’m a practicing believer my self and have been all my life, I even married a Preachers Daughter over 30 years ago, so am very experienced in REAL Leather Bindings of all books that specialise in many types of Leather Bindings in particular Study Bible re-Binds.
As you see in the pic below my Bindings come standard with Soft REAL Leather Yapp Edged Covers so as to protect the page edges of your Bible, up to Four 3mm Satin Ribbons, fully Gold Tooled Spine with Raised Bands, signature Hollow Back Lining on the Text Blocks Spine and Arbelave Library Buckram End Sheets for maximum Strength to last a lifetime of use.

Picked up my 8th Gold Blocker, another Marshall any idea of age? Will be put to good use in my Bindery.
18/09/2023

Picked up my 8th Gold Blocker, another Marshall any idea of age? Will be put to good use in my Bindery.

After 41 years I finally acquired a 130 year old ish Blocking press that fills the gap of the small Blocking Presses a...
26/06/2023

After 41 years I finally acquired a 130 year old ish Blocking press that fills the gap of the small Blocking Presses and the large ones that I have, only need to convert it from Gas to Electric to give me a Blocking Press that will do a wide range of Hot Foil De-bossing sizes, came with a number of decorative hand tools and Letterpress type draws one that had a suitable cabinet and the other was no good so I built my own last night.

Well it’s been a while but I finished a job and it wasn’t a book, it was a Suitcase, in fact two of them, very large old...
13/04/2023

Well it’s been a while but I finished a job and it wasn’t a book, it was a Suitcase, in fact two of them, very large old suitcases, they are turning into a shop front display for a Gold Coast and Brisbane Distillery called Granddad Jack’s, on one side is 12 bottles of all these different bottles of Gin with different flavours and on the other side is all the tools you need to make a Cocktail. Think they come off well, cost them a small fortune, all made with my hands.

Received this little booklet into my Bindery today, this Opera performance played in New York only 6 years after Mozart ...
22/02/2023

Received this little booklet into my Bindery today, this Opera performance played in New York only 6 years after Mozart died. Shame this was stab stitched, made it worse using wrong grain direction, but in folded signatures, so customer wants to use them so it opens up and she can read it, yes, that what I would do too, nice piece of history here.

Family Bible restorations while not easy and always go over the allotted hours for what was quoted are certainly rewardi...
09/02/2023

Family Bible restorations while not easy and always go over the allotted hours for what was quoted are certainly rewarding in the end.

Back in 1980 when i was 16 I started my Apprenticeship as a Bookbinder, who'd of thought of where it would take me, took...
09/02/2023

Back in 1980 when i was 16 I started my Apprenticeship as a Bookbinder, who'd of thought of where it would take me, took me around 14 years to start working from home restoring books and at the same time over the following 4 years into building Computers from "486's" to the new Pentium Computers back then with continual upgrades and early gaming of Quake online on my mac when I ditched Windows and bought my first mac Book Pro, to 1998 buying my first of many Domain Names, starting with "bookbinding.com.au" this one took me away from online games (thank goodness) and back onto my own business and starting to use software to build my own website and to help other do the same, continuing up and up with the restorations and custom Bindings for movie props and super stars and my website gaining the attention of people who knew people and receiving work eventually from the Pope to Prince Charles, who is now the King. I finally ditched my long term web designer software and a few years ago took time out to re design it again, while its still certainly not a professionally designed site I do receive many compliments and as you can see below for a little one man show am doing ok as far as Binding work, so am glad my path continued to change and grow along with my wife Levella Watkins and our two kids, how fortunate and Blessed can we be.

Some time ago I completed repairing a badly water damaged Wedding Album , the rear of the cover and the first couple of ...
18/01/2023

Some time ago I completed repairing a badly water damaged Wedding Album , the rear of the cover and the first couple of pages were heavily damaged as you can see by the rear covers terrible curl and was made difficult due to the Polished Stainless finish to the front cover that was laser etched, I'm a Bookbinder, Metal work I am still learning, but I am sure the owner is over joyed in the way it has come up, the photographer replaced the rear photo and I had to remove bubbles under the others, but a tense situation, but all good, owner was very happy.

Address

Urben Street
Urbenville, NSW
4275

Opening Hours

Monday 6am - 6pm
Tuesday 6am - 6pm
Wednesday 6am - 6pm
Thursday 6am - 6pm
Friday 6am - 4pm
Sunday 6am - 3pm

Telephone

+61438876467

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Milton Watkins Bookbinder posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Milton Watkins Bookbinder:

Shortcuts

Share

Category