At the top of a narrow staircase on Sidney's Beacon Avenue is a studio filled with vegetable-tanned leathers, tall glass jars of fermented dyes from plant extracts and a handcut lay press dating to about 1540.

These are the tools and materials that master bookbinder Paul Tronson uses to bring rare books back to life.

"I've spent the past 30 years trying to bring back traditional bookbinding as an art form," said the 52-year-old. "There are one or two bookbinders in England who are also traditional binders, but I seem to be the only one who makes his material."

Bookbinding and rare-book restoration is hardly a unique trade, but Tronson says what he does is a craft. He received his master's degree from the nowdefunct Alliance of Master Bookbinders, and before that was the first and only apprentice to King George VI's binder's apprentice in England.

Over his six years there, he learned modern methods of bookbinding - but saw greater value in figuring out how it would have been done at the time of publication - pushing to the top of his field by moving backward.

"I was called the last purist in England because there was nobody at my level, really," he says. He tempers the statement with modesty. "I'm sure there are, but . you know."

Here are examples of books in the bindery and shop, Period Fine Bindings, he opened in 2010: the 1838 first issue of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, the second illustrated edition of Paradise Lost in 1695, and a 1545 edition of Thomas à Kempis's The Imitation of Christ (one of three known copies in the world).

He buys books in their worst condition, restores them, and sells them.

The oldest book he's worked on dates to the 10th century; he's also worked on 2,000-year-old scrolls. And he's worked on books valued from about $160 to more than $47 million.

"I build investment libraries for clients," he says. "The return on investments are round about 12 per cent per year . rare books can't go down in value."

Tronson has touched some of the world's rarest literature - from Gutenberg Bibles to Shakespeare's works.

Though he rarely sees the books after he hands them over to clients, he's had a few tips from auctioneers. Over the decades, his own Latin signature has become valuable in itself. A family Bible that he estimates was worth about $40 when he received it, went for more than $1.3 million.

Bookbinding has been shrouded in secrecy since the age of guilds, although Tronson says he's been able to work out many of the antiquated formulas. That includes those of Joseph Zaehnsdorf, the 19th-century author of The Art of Bookbinding, which has been used as a bible for many apprentices over the centuries (although Tronson perfers a more natural approach).

"I worked out most of his formulas years ago," he says.

Zaehnsdorf included only some formulas in that book, and even left out a few key ingredients.

"He was a genius in his time, but I don't think he wanted everybody else to get to his level, basically, because it was a closed shop."

Tronson says 50 17th-century bookbinders were thrown in the Black Hole of Calcutta, a dungeon in Fort William, India, for not revealing their secrets. Like the bookbinders before him, he guards his work.

"Don't ask for any formulas because they're all unique to my work alone," he says. "I haven't patented anything or published anything."

Tronson practises more than 40 styles of sewing and more than 70 styles of period bookbinding.

Each style of bookbinding has more than 60 subdivisions, and each subdivision involves five to 20 operations.

Math?

That's 3.36 million formulas.

But he says even more important than the formulas are the methods: ironing leather to move around the fat; knitting together existing page fibres and filling in holes eaten by bookworms (yes, they're real).

He's a master at mimicry, entirely loyal to the period he's working on. He points out a copy of Nonus Porta - it's a black leather-bound book, but black dye wasn't used in the 17th century, so Tronson didn't use it either.

Instead, he uses the same method the masters of that period would have - layering yellow dye treated first with potassium tartrate, which will turn it midbrown, then ferous sulfate that changes it to blue-black.

While he's had several apprentices over the years - one for as long as three years - it seems his knowledge will be lost once he's done.

"They only scratch the surface," he says. "Even if I write a book, it's the methods that are important."

He says it would take a full 15 years to pass on all his knowledge - from formulas to target specific mildew spores, to the ability to recognize exactly which issue and edition a book belongs to, based on uncorrected errors and editorial changes.

Because of the nature of his work, however - copying exactly, rather than inventing something new - the right person could do just as he did.

"It was a dead art when I came into it," he says.

"I'm not doing anything that hasn't been done before. I'm just doing something that hasn't been done for centuries." asmart@timescolonist.com

- Tronson's website is at periodfinebindings.typepad.com