Our Second Workshop — Carving Books Again

This August, Wayne returned to Cobble to lead a second round of the same project we started with — the hand-carved book. Three new guests took their place at the bench, this time with the finished object already in mind before they'd made a single cut.

The starting point never changes: how to hold the knife, how to read the grain before the first cut, how to let the blade follow the wood instead of forcing it. What was different this time was the pace — knowing what a finished book was supposed to look like let the work move with more purpose from the first gouge.

Some of the finest work happened low to the ground, guests kneeling over the bench to work slowly at the spine and page edges — the part a knife alone won't finish — checking their progress against a reference photo taped to the surface between them.

By evening the bench was back to gluing and checking — joints pressed, pages squared, spines held up to the light to see if they'd set true. Three books left the studio that night, each one holding the particular hesitations of the hand that carved it. We're already thinking about the third.