Japanese Craftsman Restores Old Books

Nobuo Okano has been restoring books for 30 years.
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A guy brought in an old, 1,000-page English-Japanese dictionary.
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He used it in his youth and now wants to restore it and give it to his daughter.
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Nobuo begins by shaving the old glue from the spine.
The book had some maps of English-speaking countries. They suffered greatly, so Nobuo glued them to new sheets of paper.
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The color doesn’t match perfectly, but he can prevent them from degrading further.
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The most monotonous part is straightening out every page corner with tweezers…
…and then wetting and ironing the corners straight.
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He even has a special tiny iron for the job.
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The owner wrote his high school sweetheart’s initials on the book in ink.
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Using a heavy-duty paper cutter, Okano removes the color from the edges.
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New, minty-fresh pages!
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Last but not least, the cover, with the original title on a brand-new background.
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Comparison
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