OAKLAND TWP — Mechling Bookbindery last week merged with Bookbinders Workshop of New York City.

With the merger, Bookbinders Workshop has become a division of Mechling. The company supplied leather, tools, other supplies and training videos for bookbinding.

Al Mechling, president of Mechling Bookbindery, said that Bookbinders Workshop had been Mechling’s leather supplier for several years. “(Merging) came up in conversation one day,” Mechling said.

Michael Chrisman founded Bookbinders Workshop with his wife, Minnie, in 2006. They had been running the company from their Long Island home. “It was growing so fast, I couldn’t keep up,” he said.

To continue growing, the company would have had to move into a warehouse and hire a staff, he said, which could have cost more than $1 million, an amount of money that Chrisman did not want to risk.

“We were going to shut it down,” Chrisman said.

However, Mechling earlier this year indicated in a conversation that he might be interested in a merger.

Chrisman and Mechling have known each other for about 20 years, which Chrisman said helped the merger process.

“We knew we could trust each other,” he said.

The company will continue to offer the same services, only this time as part of Mechling Bookbindery. Most of the Bookbinders Workshop operations will move to Mechling’s 10,000-square-foot warehouse and shipping facility on Route 38. “We have everything here ... to help it grow,” Mechling said.

Chrisman now is the international sales manager and director of marketing and product development for the merged company. He said his strength always was marketing and product creation more so than operating a company.

“This is almost my dream job,” Chrisman said, who will work out of an office in Rockefeller Center in New York City.

Mechling Bookbindery employs nine people. Mechling said it is possible that the company will have to hire more people eventually. The company was founded in 1995 by Mechling and his wife, Marla.