For good measure, I dab the filed edge with a cloth slightly moistened with surgical spirit afterwards.įoxing – after filing Getting Things Straight
Note that it does take some time and requires some care, being a destructive process, if only mildly so. I’ve had great results by gently filing away fox marks with a nail file ( also a great remedy for yellowing book edges). Granted, they’re not the most aesthetically pleasing, so you wouldn’t be blamed for wanting to improve the appearance of foxed books. It’s generally the result of reactions between paper chemicals and air, amongst other things, more or less akin to rust on metal. I assumed they were organic marks, like mould, which might spread to other books.įortunately, foxing is almost always completely harmless. Fighting Foxesįoxing – those little brown spots on the sides of books – used to give me the heebie-jeebies. Moisten your cloth or towel, and simply pat the sides of the book down slightly, taking care not to rub too vigorously.īoots do a 500ml bottle of surgical spirit for just over a fiver, and it lasts for ages. Teach Yourself Polish, 1993 – now with added shineįor book edges, you can apply some spiritual cleaning by switching to a dab technique. Done well, this can make glossy colour picture covers positively pop. Always be careful not to scuff or over-dampen the card edge. It evaporates quickly, so doesn’t drench and damage pagesįor covers, I dampen a kitchen towel with some spirit and wipe outwards from the middle of the covers to the edges.It’s not caustic, like bleach-based or similar solutions.It’s excellent for cleaning glossy-cover paperbacks for a couple of reasons: My number one, can’t-do-without item for sprucing up tatty books is surgical spirit. Here are some of the best methods I’ve found for brushing up my ever-increasing hoard of yesteryear’s language learning resources.īy way of disclaimer, I’m no expert – just a book lover who has Googled this stuff endlessly over the past couple of months! If you’ve come across different advice or have other book-restoring tips, please let me know in the comments. Thankfully, paper-friendly clean-up isn’t too hard at all, and you may well have many of the tools at home already. When first faced with slightly grubby, neglected and bashed about titles, my first thought was: how on earth do you clean a book? I mean, plain old soap and water isn’t going to help matters here nobody wants to read a damp Teach Yourself. That said, if you want a smart, tidy bookshelf, some of those books will need a little tender loving care. It’s a hobby that can easily become addictive thanks to the bargains to be had.
There’s something beautiful about rescuing discarded treasures from forgotten bookshelves, and making them useful again. If you hadn’t noticed from my recent blogging fervour, restoring second hand language books is my latest hobby obsession.
0 kommentar(er)
