Douglas Cockerell

“ Imperfect tooling arises from a variety of causes. If an impression is clear, but the gold not solid, it is probably because the tool was not hot enough, or was not put down firmly. If only one side of an impression fails to stick, it is usually because the tool was unevenly impressed. If an impression is blurred, and the gold has a frosted look, it is because the leather has been burned, either because the tool was too hot, or kept down too long, or the preparation was too fresh. ”

“ A coating of glair or varnish is found to some extent to protect leather from adverse outside influences, but, unfortunately, both glair and varnish tend rather to harden leather than to keep it flexible, and they fail just where failure is most serious, that is at the joints. In opening and shutting, any coat of glair or varnish that has become hard will crack, and expose the leather of the joint and back. Flexibility is an essential quality in bookbinding leather, for as soon as the leather at the joint of a binding becomes stiff it breaks away when the boards are opened. ”

“ To have only one leaf, and to have that curved, produces very restless patterns. The essence of gold-tool design, is that patterns are made up of repeats of impressions of tools, and that being so, the tools must be so designed that they will repeat pleasantly, and in practice it will be found that any but simple forms will become aggressive in repetition. ”

“ As glaire is apt to show and disfigure the leather when dry, it is best to use it as sparingly as possible, and, excepting where the pattern is very close, to confine it to the impressions of the tools. It is not at all an uncommon thing to see the effect of an otherwise admirably tooled binding spoilt by a dark margin round the tools, caused by the careless use of glaire. Glaire should not be used unless it is quite liquid and clean. Directly it begins to get thick it should be strained or thrown away.
The finisher should not glaire in more than he can tool the same day. ”

“ The amount of rounding on the back of a book should be determined by the necessities of the case; that is to say, a back that has, through guarding, or excess of sewing, a tendency to be round, is best not forced to be flat, and a back that would naturally be flat, is best not forced to be unduly round. A very round back is objectionable where it can be avoided, because it takes up so much of the back margins of the sheets, and is apt to make the book stiff in opening. On the other hand, a back that is quite flat has to be lined up stiffly, or it may become concave with use. ”

“ The knife for cutting edges may be ground more acutely than for cutting boards, and should be very sharp, or the paper may be torn. The plough knife should never be ground on the under side, as if the under side is not quite flat, it will tend to run up instead of cutting straight across. Before beginning to cut edges, the position of the knife should be tested carefully by screwing the plough up, with the press a little open, and noting whereabouts on the left-hand cheek the point of the knife comes. In a press that is true the knife should just clear the edge of the press. ”

“ To produce cheaper bindings, as must be done in the case of large libraries, some alteration of design is necessary. Appearance must to some extent be sacrificed to strength and durability, and not, as is too [174] often the case, strength and durability sacrificed to appearance. The essentials of any good binding are, that the sections should be sound in themselves, and that there should be no plates or odd sheets “pasted on,” or anything that would prevent any leaf from opening right to the back; the sewing must be thoroughly sound; the sewing materials of good quality ”

“ Although the use of double-line fillets saves time, I have found that a few single-line fillets with edges of different gauges are sufficient for running all straight lines, and that the advantage of being able to alter the distances between any parallel lines is ample compensation for the extra trouble involved by their use. In addition to the rigid stamps, an endless pattern for either blind or gold tooling may be engraved on the circumference of a roll, and impressed on the leather by wheeling. ”

“ The report shows that bookbinders and librarians are not, as a general rule, qualified to select leather for bookbinding. In the old days, when the manufacture of leather was comparatively simple, a bookbinder might reasonably be expected to know enough of the processes employed to be able to select his leather. But now so complicated is the manufacture, and so many are the factors to be considered, that an expert should be employed. ”

“ In selecting the thickness of cord for a book, some judgment is required. On an old book the bands are best made rather prominent by the use of thick cord, but the exact thickness to be used is a matter for taste and experience to decide.
A very thick band on a small book is clumsy, while a very thin band on the back of a heavy book suggests weakness, and is therefore unsightly.
In bindings of early printed books and manuscripts an appearance of great strength is better than extreme neatness. ”

“ When the paste-water is dry, the leather should be washed with size. Size can be made by boiling down vellum cuttings, or by dissolving gelatine or isinglass in warm water.
For the less porous leathers, such as morocco, seal, or pig skin, no paste-water or size is necessary, unless the skin happens to be a specially open one, or the cover has been cut from the flank or belly. Then it is best to put a little paste in the vinegar or water used for washing up. When the leather is nearly, but not quite, dry the impressions of the tools must be painted with glaire. ”

“ Gold-tooled lines have in themselves such great beauty, that designers are often tempted to make them meander about the cover in a weak and aimless way. As the limitations enforced by the use of gouges tend to keep the curves strong and small, and as the use of the small fillet tends to the production of long, weak curves, students are advised at first to restrict the curved lines in their patterns to such as can be readily worked with gouges. ”

“ If a book is sent out unopened, the first person into whose hand it falls will probably open it somewhere in the centre, bending the covers back and “breaking” the back; and if any leaves chance to have been stuck together in edge-gilding, they are likely to be torn if carelessly opened. A book with a “broken” back will always have a tendency to open in the same place, and will not keep its shape. It would be worth while for librarians to have newly bound books carefully opened. ”

“ It is an old and good custom to put the arms of the owner of a library on the covers of the books he has bound. The traditional, and certainly one of the best ways to do this, is to have an arms block designed and cut. To design an arms [228] block, knowledge of heraldry is needed, and also some clear idea of the effect to be aimed at. A very common mistake in designing blocks is to try and get the effect of hand tooling. ”

“ When the sheets come from the press the treatment of the edges must be decided upon, that is, whether they are to be entirely uncut, trimmed before sewing, or cut in boards.
Early printed books and manuscripts should on no account have their edges cut at all, and any modern books of value are better only slightly trimmed and gilt before sewing. But for books of reference that need good bindings, on account of the wear they have to withstand, cutting in boards is best, as the smooth edge so obtained makes the leaves easier to turn over. ”

“ Although within the bounds of academic art, the competition, of its kind, is so acute that only a very few per cent. can fairly hope to succeed as painters and sculptors; yet, as artistic craftsmen, there is every probability that nearly every one who would pass through a sufficient period of apprenticeship to workmanship and design would reach a measure of success. ”

“ Tools for blind tooling are best “die-sunk,” that is, cut like a seal. The “sunk” part of the face of the tool, which may be more or less modelled, forms the pattern, and the higher part [189] depresses the leather to form a ground. In tools for gold tooling, the surface of the tool gives the pattern.
Tools may be either complex or simple in design, that is to say, each tool may form a complete design with enclosing border, as the lower ones on page 323, or it may be only one element of a design, as at fig. 100. Lines may be run with a fillet (see fig. 88) , or made with gouges or pallets. ”

“ Generally speaking, successful gold-tooled patterns show evidence of having been designed with the tools; of being, in fact, mere arrangements of the tools, and not of having been first designed with a pencil, and then worked with tools cut to fit the drawing. This does not of course apply to patterns composed entirely of lines, or to patterns composed of lines of dots. [246]
If artists wish to design for gold tooling without first mastering the details, probably the safest way will be for them to design in lines of gold dots. ”

“ Sound leather should tear with difficulty, and the torn edges should be fringed with long, silky fibres, and any leather which tears very easily, and shows short, curled-up fibres at the torn edges, should be discarded. But though good bookbinding leather will tear with difficulty, and show long fibres where torn, that is in itself not a sufficient test; because it has been shown that the leather that is mechanically the strongest, is not necessarily the most [274] durable and the best able to resist the adverse influences to which books are subject in libraries. ”

“ Heat.—While damp is very injurious to books on account of the development [296] of mildew, unduly hot dry air is almost as bad, causing leather to dry up and lose its flexibility. On this point the Chairman of the Society of Arts Committee says:—
“Rooms in which books are kept should not be subject to extremes, whether of heat or cold, of moisture or dryness. It may be said that the better adapted a room is for human occupation, the better for the books it contains. ”

“ In a temporary publisher’s binding, nothing should be done to the sections of a book that would injure them. Plates should be guarded, the sewing should be on tapes, without splitting the head and tail, or “sawing in” the backs, of the sections; the backs should be glued up square without backing. The case may be attached, as is now usual. For a permanent publisher’s binding, something like that recommended for libraries (page 173) is suggested, with either leather or cloth on the back. ”

“ Tooling will generally be brighter if the tools are struck fairly sharply, and at once removed from the leather, than if they are kept down a long time.
To “strike” dots, the book should be turned with the head to the worker, and the tool held with the handle inclining slightly towards him. This will make them appear bright when the book is held the right way up.
Gouges must be “sighted” from the inside of the curve, and struck evenly, or the points may cut into the leather. Short straight lines may be put in with pieces of line, and longer ones with a fillet. ”

“ If there are only a few sheets, they can be placed between blotting-paper as they are removed from the size; but if there is a whole book, it is best to lay them in a pile one on the other, and [69] when all have been sized to squeeze them in the “lying press” between pressing-boards, a pan being put underneath to catch the liquid squeezed out. When the sheets have been squeezed they can be readily handled, and should be spread out to dry on a table upon clean paper. When they are getting dry and firm they can be hung on strings stretched across the room, slightly overlapping one another. ”

“ To look right, a pattern must be consistent throughout. The tools and their arrangement must have about the same amount of convention. Gold tooling, dealing, as it does, with flat forms in silhouette only, necessitates very considerable formality in the design of the tools and of their arrangement on the cover. Modern finishers have become so skilful, that they are able to produce in gold tooling almost any design that can be drawn in lines with a pencil, and some truly marvellous results are obtained by the use of inlays, and specially cut gouges. ”

“ Fig. 81.
The use of a roll in finishing dates from the end of the fifteenth century, and some satisfactory bindings were decorated with its aid. The ease with which it can be used has led in modern times to its abuse, and I hardly know of a single instance of a modern binding on which rolls have been used for the decoration with satisfactory results. The gain in time and trouble is at the expense of freedom and life in the [191] design; and for extra binding it is better to build up a pattern out of small tools of simple design, which can be arranged in endless variety, than to use rolls. ”

“ As a rule, such patterns simply serve to show the skill of the finisher, and to make one wonder who could have been foolish enough to select so limited and laborious a method as gold tooling for carrying them out. ”