Finishing touches

Until now, I have been mostly watching my bookbinding mentor Pat do the rough repair portion of books - replacing and covering the "boards" or covers, reattaching the covers, reattaching end papers, and even repairing end papers and other major problems. But this session was all about final finish work that adds so much "flair" to the finished product.

For the first time since I've been working with him, Pat pulled out his type trays. Specifically he wanted to use the 8 pt type this time around.


Pat was just finishing recovering a book with some beautiful goat skin leather. The owner wanted the title to be stamped on the spine in gold.

While the brass tools were heating up on the specially built tool heater, Pat began setting the type in a small hand held type holder.


This is where experiences printers have to remember to set the type upside down and backwards. The width of the typeholder allows Pat to set three or four small lines separated by spaces.

The book is held upright by one of the wooden presses and a small ribbon of plastic with actual gold on one side is placed over the spine. The correct section of the type holder (which has been sitting on the heat table) is then rolled onto the gold ribbon. This transfers gold to the newly pressed spine leaving an indentation as well as a gold lined indentation.

Pat then showed me how he used rolling patterns to produce patterns that were unique and beautiful. Certain aspects of bookbinding seem much more like art than manual labor.