Note 1 — MODERN ENGLISH BINDING

For the benefit of those who are interested in the technicality of what is known as ‘tooling,’ we will briefly describe in what it consists. ‘Finishing tools’ are stamps of metal that have a pattern cut on the face, and the shanks of which are held in wooden handles. Such patterns can be complete in themselves, or the single ‘tools’ may have only the elements of a pattern that needs to be built up, for the ‘tools’ must not be too large, or they cannot be worked with sureness of result. The design is composed of these ‘tools’ in combination with gouges which are curved lines. The drawing is first made accurately on paper by means of blackening the tools in a candle or lightly impressing them on an ink-pad. This paper is then placed on the book and slightly attached with paste at each corner. The tools are next gently heated and reworked on the drawing, leaving an impression in ‘blind,’ as it is called, on the leather sufficient to be seen through the gold leaf when this is applied ready for the next operation. The cover is now damped with water and the impressions left by the tools pencilled over with a preparation of white of egg known as glaire, applied with a camel-hair brush. When this is sufficiently dry, but not too dry, the gold leaf is put on, and the individual ‘tools,’ taken at just the right heat, are reworked in the impressions seen faintly beneath the gold. Fresh gold may have to be applied and the pattern reworked several times if the tools are solid or the leather for any reason presents special difficulties. These are, roughly speaking, the processes necessary to the working of a design, though many small ones have been omitted. It will be seen at once, however, from this brief account: firstly, that there are no freehand possibilities about the operation; and secondly, that to be a good finisher a workman should know something of drawing, for he cannot make a correct pattern, much less one that has any organic meaning, unless he understands how to combine small tools with taste and judgment. He must know what to leave out as well as what to put in; if there is inlaying, he must have a sense of colour-harmony and contrast, and he must understand enough of styles not to mix up those of different periods, nor to select one that is unsuitable to the special character of the book.