Gold tooling with jigs

This post shows tooling on a full leather binding using gold foil. I used my tooling box that I made based on a box used by Michael Wilcox when he did a gold tooling demonstration at the Bookbinding 2000 Conference. The box gives you a flat and firm surface to support the cover while you are tooling and holds the rest of the book inside.

 

  




My box is made from 1/2 inch birch plywood and is lined inside with felt to protect the book when it is placed inside. 

The top panel of the box is beveled back so that you can slide the cover over to the joint. I filed down the edge about an inch and a half along the length of the opening.

Here is the book placed in the box with the cover on top.To begin tooling I used a second jig to start the the design which I then put on three books.  Using a piece of 3-ply Bristol Board, I cut out the curve at the corner of the design base with the curve of one of my gouges. 

 I used a small weight to hold the jig in place and slipped a piece of foil under it, then began tooling. After you're done, you can remove the foil and if you leave the jig in place, you can slip another piece of foil in and retool if there are any breaks in the line.

Here are the four corners tooled.

Next I used a line jig made from two pieces of book board that I taped together. One piece is about an inch and a half wide and the second piece is about five to six inches wide and both pieces are 11 inches tall.
I used a clear plastic ruler so I can line up the jig using the edge of the the cover.

To make the jig, I laid the thinner piece on top of the other larger piece and wrapped the packing tape around the edge of the two pieces. Then I folded the thinner piece back over and put a piece of tape on the other side. This allowed the thinner piece to fold up so I could slip a piece of foil under it while the larger piece was held in place with a weight. 

I used pieces of low tack masking tape to show me where the line should start and end because once the foil is placed under the jig I cannot see when to start and end without  those markers. I used a line pallet to make the line because it glides across the foil. I have also used fillet and patterned wheels with this jig. When I am doing tooling with gold leaf, this jig helps with the blind tooling.

 In this photo, I am lining up for the second tooled line.

I do occasionally have to remove the jig and touch up the corners where the lines meet but by using the jigs I can have the lines and curves or other small decorative tools in the same place on both covers.

Threads That Bind

I purchased this book, Threads That Bind, unbound, in sheets, from Oak Knoll Books. It is a series of interviews with hand bookbinders by Pamela Leutz. Initially, I thought of a design showing a book being sewn on cords but when searching through the various pieces of book leather in my studio, I uncovered three large buffalo skins and decided it was time to use some of them for this book. This book was intended to be my own personal copy so I felt I could take some chances with a new leather.

I had a light green, a light gray and a pale blue skins, but I was not pleased with their look. I had tried to die them before and was unsuccessful. This time I just wiped the surface lightly with a dark brown spirit dye to catch the high points of the texture. I wanted a quick drying dye that would not bleed down into the the open areas. I tried it on all three colors and chose the gray skin for the binding.

Here you can see where I took a piece of Mylar to daub some of the excess dye off before wiping with a lightly dampened paper towel. The skin is sitting on a piece of plexiglass I use when dying leather and paper.

When I finished dyeing the second skin, I knocked over the bottle of dye. Luckily almost all the dye stayed on the Mylar so it was an easy clean up.

I spent a week working with Karen Hanmer in her studio and we decided to follow the binding techniques in Jen Lindsay"s book Fine Bookbinding: A Technical Guide, also from Oak Knoll. There were steps I have used before plus new variations on others, so it was a good exercise to go through.

The book was sewn on pliester linen tapes with a leather hinged endpaper construction. The book was rounded but not backed with the book boards sanded to fit the shape of the pages at the spine.

The book sat under Karen's gold brick weight while the glue on the spine dries out.

The buffalo skin was a little more spongy in texture than the goat skins I was used to. I had the skin split down to .07 mm but it still seemed too thick so I sanded down the board edges to give the book edges a thinner appearance.




Before covering, I looked for onlay colors but still did not have a final design in mind.

I am very fond of Art Deco bindings so I worked on using a design made of lines. The dark bands are dark brown and dark blue onlays.

For the rest of the lines I used copper foil. The warmer look of the copper worked better than gold on this unusual colored skin.

I use a simple jig to aid me when I tool straight lines. I learned this technique from a poster session at the Guild of Book Workers Standards Meeting. It consists of two pieces of book board taped together with packing tape so the smaller piece can fold up. Then you can see where the edge of the board lines up and you can slip the foil under it. In this photo you can see where I have taped off where to start and stop the line when I tool it.

I use a 1 1/4 inch line pallet for most of the lines with smaller lines done with other shorter pallets. Since you place the jig first you can use a ruler to make sure that it is in place. Then I use a box weight to hold it down.

After tooling if you keep the jig in place, you can check the line and repeat the tooling if there are any gaps and breaks or if the line is too short.

The titling was also done in copper using type and a hand pallet.





The finished book was displayed in the Lone Star Chapter of the Build of Book Workers 2011 shows in Dallas and Houston, Texas. It is also included in the 2011 Bind-O-Rama at http://www.philobiblon.com/bindorama10/index.html

Perfect Bound?

Perfect binding is the technique of securing loose single pages of a book into a solid text block with an adhesive rather than by means of sewing. A common example of this is the paperback; almost everyone has seen at least one where the binding has failed and the pages have begun to fall out. Less than perfect, the binding with glue is sometimes needed for a book. To aid in the gluing of the edges of the pages I have made a simple jig.

Measuring the height of the cross pieces of my laying press, I cut two pieces of book board to this height by the opening between the screws. Then two more boards cut to around 5 inches wide by the length between the screws. I hinge the two boards together on one side with book cloth leaving a small gap between them. I made this set of boards to use with pages that are 8 1/2 x 11, the most common size I am asked to bind.

These boards should lay in the press as seen in the photograph. They will help to hold the pages together when you put them in the press and provide a surface when gluing and then finally will hold the pages together after they have been glued.

The text block is squared up between the boards with the fore edge is placed inside the press. Check to see that the spine is out for gluing and the pages are squared up to the spine.

After the pages are secure put down waste sheets under them as you fold them over to one side. This fans out the edges and when you glue you actually are gluing the sides of the pages at the spine edge. Before gluing, I place another waste sheet on top to keep the glue from going too far on the top page. Brush PVA glue across the fanned edges.

Quickly before the glue starts to dry the pages are folded over to the other side and glued again so both side of the pages are glued at the edge. Sometimes you will hear this kind of adhesive binding called a "Double Fan Binding."

After the second side is glued, remove the waste paper and slip wax paper between the pages and the boards of the jig. Bring the pages back upright and clamp the boards around the pages. Let the glue dry over night in the press and then line the spine and prepare a case as usual to finish the binding.

For thicker books, I sometimes give the text block a slight rounding by using a cardboard tube under the press so when I put the pages and board in the press they shift over the curve of the tube. You do not want to round the pages too much because it will interfere with the fanning over of the pages and will not expose as much of the sides of the pages for gluing.

Paring Knives and a Spokeshave

An array of tools are needed to do the work of fine binding. To start with, I'll talk about paring knives. I have several knives and use them all regularly but I do have a favorite one. It is an English style paring knife made by my friend Jack Shapiro.

Jack made me this knife so I could teach him about leather binding. I had done two small quarter leather books while in graduate school so my knowledge about working with leather was limited at the time but I was all the Jack had. So when I said I did not have a paring knife I thought the tutorial would end there. A few days later he placed this knife down at my desk and asked when we could start. He also showed me how to sharpen and keep a good edge on it.

I taught him what little I knew back then and he pushed me to do more and helped focus me on the path for my work as a binder. Jack died several years ago but each time I use this knife think of him.

This is an English style knife with an angled edge. I use it for general edge paring. I also use French style paring knives with rounded blades. These work best for thinning out areas around head caps and smoothing areas when ridges can be felt along the pared edges of the leather.

Why two French and two English paring knives? At first I bought the second ones to see if there were other knives to recommend to students but as I used them, I discovered that there are differences with how they cut. I find there are times when one is better for a particular skin or for an area that I am having problems paring. Besides, you can never have too many knives.

To protect the edges of the knives I have made caps or cases for them. The caps are made from thin cardboard cut to fit around the blade and then covered in thin leather. The cases are made from layers of book board and are covered in book cloth and marbled paper. I make recessed areas with the book board so the knife sits down into the case and does not bang around, thus damaging the blade.

I also wrap my knives with leather to make them more comfortable to hold. It is a good way to personalize my tools.

This is my traveling set of knives. It hold two knives and a leather strop and is housed in a Japanese wrap around cover so it is easy to carry.

The strop has a piece of 600 grit wet dry sandpaper on one side and a piece of leather on the other side. There is a 5 mil. sheet of Mylar placed in between to keep the sand paper grit away from the leather and the polishing cream.

To keep a good edge on my knives, I have a leather strop and smaller strops covered with 600 and 1000 grit wet dry sandpaper in my studio. My leather strop is mounted to a piece of wood and has a working area of 10 x 2 3/4 inches. I rub Chromglanz Polishing Cream into the leather.

The sandpaper strops are mounted on pieces of book board. These are used when the edge of the knife has gotten too dull to be just stropped on the leather. The sandpaper helps to reshape and sharpen the edge and then the blade is stropped on the leather to finish polishing the edge.

Another important element in paring is the surface you work on. I have a small litho stone I use but I have also used marbled slabs. You need a very smooth surface to work on. Glass is not a good surface because it is harder than the steel the blade is made with and will dull the edge quickly.

A spokeshave used for woodworking is another tool that can be used in paring leather. The tool and the blade must first be modified for leather work. The angle of the sole plate needs to be lowered and the opening needs to be wider so the parings can be cleared from the blade. The blade needs a longer bevel and the corner has to be slightly rounded so they will not gouge into the leather. When it is used for leather, the blade is mounted backwards into the spokeshave. There is a good article written on how to modify a spokeshave in the Skin Deep newsletter from J Hewit and Sons Ltd.

http://www.hewit.com/skin_deep/?volume=16&article=2#article

There is also an article on sharpening the blade here:

http://www.hewit.com/skin_deep/?volume=24&article=2#article

My spokeshave is from Sears and was bought back in the mid eighties. My binding class bought several others and someone agreed to reshape the soles for the group. When I first used it, things went badly. I had seen someone using it only once and it looked so easy. I put it away for years before I tried again. Later I realized that the sole just had to be reground to the new angle and the opening enlarged, but I also needed to finish smoothing and polishing the sole.

I tried many more times unsuccessfully to pare leather with it. I needed some help and started reading articles about how to use it and asked anyone I could how they did it. Slowly, I got the angle of the stroke and the depth of the blade right. It's fair to say that learning to use these tools takes lots of trail and error.

The Restoration of Leather Bindings

With this binding, I only have photographs of the gold finishing. The book was started several years ago and I finally finished it in May of this year. It was sewn on four tapes with a hollow back spine, silk endbands, leather hinges and covered in a Hewit tan goatskin.

The book was Bernard Middleton’s The Restoration of Leather Bindings, originally purchased in sheets. This book had many drawings throughout and I used two of these drawings for the cover design.

I enlarged the drawings from the book and then redrew them so the curves would match the tools I have. I own a half set of designer gouges (even nos.), a set of blending gouges and a set of line pallets all 1.5 pt thickness from P&S Engraving.

To do this, I used an ink stamping pad and went over the drawing with the different tools, noting which ones went where on the drawing. To help determine which gouges will work, I have a sheet where I have used the gouges to make larger arcs on tracing paper so I can lay it over the drawing to find the right tool for a given curve. The image on the front cover took eight different tools while the back cover took sixteen.

With both drawings there were small lines about a 2 mm and 4mm long and my shortest line tool was 5 mm so I made two new line tools using brass rod set into a dowel handle. I also made a small curve about 2.5 mm wide.

I have written about making tools in an article for The Bonefolder Journal, volume 5, number 2, Spring 2009 which can be downloaded at-

http://www.philobiblon.com/bonefolder/vol5no2contents.htm

I worked on one side of the cover at a time and made my final two drawings on a thin Japanese paper. I attached the drawings on the book by wrapping the paper around the book and taping on a second strip that wraps up over the book. I used dividers to check that the drawing was placed squarely on the book.

The first tooling on the leather was done with a warm tool through the paper pattern. After I went over the entire drawing I lifted up part of the drawing and checked to see if anything was missed. I kept the drawing taped in place in case I needed to go over any missed areas. When all was checked, I removed the paper drawing.

The second tooling of the image was done with warm tools with the leather dry to deepen the impressions in the leather. That way I could straighten out lines and make corrections if needed. For the third tooling of the image I dampened an area with a wet sponge and allowed the water to soak in for a moment and then tooled the impression with a warm tool. This wet tooling with warm tools hardens and deepens the impression.

After the wet tooling was done and the book dried, I painted the glaire into the impressions with a fine brush. I used a #00 liner brush and B.S. Glaire, a shellac-based glaire, and brushed two coats into the impressions. Then I waited an hour for the glaire to dry between coats.

To begin working with the gold leaf I laid out two leaves of gold on top of one another on the gold cushion and cut them to size. Using sweet almond oil I rubbed over an area of the cover I want to tool. Oil helps in handling and holding the gold in place while you tool it.

I used a piece of cotton wool and rubbed it against my face to pick up a small amount of natural oil. Then I rolled the cotton over the gold leaf to pick up the gold off the cushion. The oil on the cotton pad is very slight but it does pick up the gold and then when it is laid on the book where the sweet almond oil has been rubbed on the leather, the gold will stay in place.

Pressing the cotton on the gold a second time with a quick down and up motion pushes the gold into the tool impressions. This helps me see where to place the tool for the next tooling.

I went over the gold covered areas with warm tools using the heat of the tool to adhere the gold to the leather with the glaire in the tooled lines. I have a gold rubber that I rub over the loose gold leaf to pick up the extra gold. I then grease up the next area and lay more gold and continue tooling. After I have gone over the image I repeat the whole process two or three times building up the layers of gold in the tooled lines.

Faults and breaks in the gold may require some small areas to have glaire painted in again and then lay down the gold and retool.

After tooling, the edges of the lines are cleaned up with a sharpened wooden stick, in this case an orange stick used for manicures. The tooling of the gold and cleaning up of the impression takes several hours for each side.

For the titling of this book, I tried several different sizes of type and arrangements using the ink stamping pad and a lettering pallet.

As with the cover drawings I made a pattern on Japanese paper that I used for the first tooling.

I did the title in sections that would fit into my 4 inch pallet.

The first tooling through the paper pattern.

The third tooling with damp leather and warm type

Placing the gold for the first layer of gold leaf.

This book is to be my working copy for restoration work on bindings which is why it often got set aside and took years for it to be completed. I was looking forward to having it on my bookshelf, so of course the first thing I did was send it to England for a binding exhibition. It will be on display at the Society of Bookbinders' 17th Biennial Education & Training Conference at the University of Warwick.