There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
There is a lot you can do at home without having things like a fancy book press, and that's one of the things I love about it. I'm super lucky that in SF, we have the San Francisco Center for the Book. Once you take a basic course with them, you are able to rent studio time- and they've got all the stuff you need. Sometimes I will work on as many projects as I can up until a certain point where I need the equipment, and then spend some time there to use even just the guillotine for those smooth even edges.
As for supplies- I got some basic supplies (awl, bone folder, linen thread, paper) from a normal art store. Of course today you can also get everything online, but I think it's fun to make my own book cloth. You can take any fabric and turn it into book cloth with the right kind of glue and paper. When I was in college, there was a bookbindery super close to campus (Petingell's Bookbindery for any Berkeley folks). They would sell me leftover scraps of book cloth for very cheap, and they also had a selection of other supplies and leftovers, like headbands and cool paper. Art books made out of found objects are fun too.
What about you? It sounds like you are into making books as well!