STUDIO OBJECTS: BONE FOLDER

This tool was introduced to me in college, when I took a year-long papermaking and bookmaking course with Walter Feldman at Brown University.


The bone folder is usually bone, though oftener plastic, and is a hard but rounded-edge tool. It’s used on an about-to-be-folded piece of paper to flatten it crisply, without getting oily or smudgy fingers involved, achieving a nice, sharp fold.


I use it to fold paper, make cards, signatures (grouped, sheets of paper folded in half) for books, specifically the End papers books. It’s a tool with a simple, specific use, and I’ve had the same one for more than 30 years.