How To: Clean soiled page edges

[Randall Flagg]

I have achieved moderate to very good success cleaning soiled page edges using sandpaper. Here is what worked best for me:

• Practice on a book of little value before attempting on an expensive book!
• Remove dustjacket from book.
• Cover book boards in construction or printer paper. You don’t want to accidentally sand and damage the board. I use bull clips to hold the paper in place on the boards.
• Cut a piece of 220 grit sandpaper to the width of the page block. 6” in length for each piece is about right.
• Holding the pages tightly, sand the soil/stain in one continuous stroke in one direction. You can reverse and do a stroke the other way, just don’t sand back and forth. Even stokes with pressure the full width of the page block works best. Most books a thumb is best, but larger books-The Stand, etc, require 2-3 fingers on the sandpaper.

This works really well on dust accumulation, spot soil, finger grease and light edge stains. It does not work well on liquid stains-they usually are far into the page, nor does it work very well on mold, mildew or speckles. It also can’t be used on books with rough page edges (Pet Sematary).

Here are a couple of examples: