The changes in the methods of bookbinding during the last sixty years have been very great, and during the last twenty-five years the invention of machines for doing the work rapidly has created almost a revolution in the art.

Fifty years ago the pay of journeymen bookbinders ranged from eight to ten dollars a week, for a day of ten hours, and the cost of binding an ordinary 12mo volume of 500 pages in cloth was from sixteen to eighteen cents. To-day the same volume can be bound for eight to ten cents, with the pay of the journeyman from eighteen to twenty dollars a week, for a day of nine hours. The pay of girls has, as a general thing, been proportionally increased, while the amount of work they can turn out with the newly invented machinery is triple as much as could be done by hand, and on some branches of the work it is more than six times as much.

The first process of making a book is the folding. The sheets are usually printed so as to fold in sections of sixteen pages, with signature figures, as 1, 2, 3, or alphabet letters, as A, B, C, printed at the bottom of the first page of each section, for the guidance of the binder in placing the signatures in regular order for gathering the book.

Usually two or four forms are printed on one sheet. One girl could fold by hand from 3500 to 4000 sections of 16 pages a day. With modern machines the range is from 17,000 to 48,000, according to the make of the machine and whether it is equipped with an automatic feeder or not.

There are three styles of machines in general use. The point machine, fed by hand, has needle points on the feed board, on which is placed the sheet, which has proper holes made by the printing press. The next is called a drop-roll machine, which, if equipped with an automatic feeder, will fold 24,000 sections a day, delivering two sections at each revolution. The next is called a quadruple machine, which, with an automatic feeder, will fold 48,000 sections a day or as many as twelve girls could do by hand.

In binderies where large editions of books are done, it would be almost impossible to keep the different sections from getting mixed, unless they were put into compact bundles and tied up until the complete book is folded. This is accomplished by putting a quantity of each section into hydraulic or screw presses, with a board at the top and bottom of the bundle, which is tied with a strong cord. They are then marked with name and signature, and piled up until wanted for gathering into books.

If the book has plates printed separately from the text, they have to be inserted before it can be gathered. Plating is done by girls, 5000 being a day's work for an experienced hand.

Gathering comes next. The sections are laid out in separate piles in consecutive order, and one signature taken from each pile, making a complete book. From 30,000 to 45,000 sections is a day's work.

After gathering, the book is pressed to make it solid. This is done by passing it through a powerful press, called a smashing machine. The old-fashioned way was to pile the books between boards in a standing press, running the screw down with an iron lever, and allowing them to stay in same for several hours. In a modern smashing machine a book can be made as solid in half a minute as the standing press will make it by ten hours' pressing.

From the smashing machine it goes to the collator, by whom it is examined to see if any signature is misplaced or left out.

It then goes to the modern sewing machine. This is one of the most valuable labor-saving machines for the binder ever invented, as it almost, if not entirely, supersedes hand sewing on what is called edition work. This machine will sew from 15,000 to 18,000 signatures a day, and do it better than it can be done by hand. Each signature is sewed independently and with from two to five stitches, so that if one breaks the signature is held fast by the others, while in hand sewing the thread goes through the whole length of the signature, and if by chance it is broken, the book is ruined so far as the sewing is concerned. In addition the machine does more work, in the same time, than five or six girls sewing by hand.

After sewing, the books are prepared for trimming by "jogging up" in bunches of the proper thickness, for the cutting machine. If the work is large or the paper highly sized and slippery, a light coating of glue is applied to the centre of the back, to keep the signatures in place. In olden times books were trimmed in a press having hardwood jaws and wood screws near each end, worked with an iron lever. Into this press the books were clamped, the rough edge to be trimmed off projecting above the jaws. To trim the book, a plough was used, made of two thick side pieces of hard wood about one foot long and six inches high, with a long hand screw passing through them. (The end at the right had a handle outside of the side piece, and the end at the left engaged a screw in the left side piece.) At the bottom of the right side piece, and resting on the jaw of the press, was a sharp-pointed knife. The plough was worked back and forth, and at each motion the screw in the plough was turned enough for the knife to take a shaving from the book. To keep the plough in place, the left-hand jaw had a deep groove on its surface, in which the plough worked. This was slow and hard work.

Sometime between the years 1840 and 1850, a machine was invented in which books were clamped, and a heavy knife descended perpendicularly. This was an improvement on the old-fashioned press and plough, but it was found that, unless the knife was very sharp, the tendency was to draw the paper, and in effect jam it off rather than cut it.

To obviate this, the next move was to arrange the knife so that it would give a drawing cut, or come down on a slant, rather than a rigid descent. This is the principle on which most book and paper cutting machines are made to-day.

About 1850 a machine was invented in which a vibrating knife worked back and forth on the paper to be cut. This was thought at the time to be the best principle for a cutting machine.

Ten or twenty years later a new machine made its appearance. This one had a knife held rigidly in the frame of the machine, and the books were clamped into a carriage drawn up by a chain against the edge of the knife. It was the most rapid trimmer that had appeared, and held its position for a good many years; but in the meantime, for general work, the machines with a descending slanting knife held their own and multiplied.

Within a very short time a new machine has appeared. This has two slanting descending knives and doubles the work of the older machines, as it cuts two sides at one blow, and will trim from 7000 to 8000 ordinary books a day, against 500 or 600 by the old-fashioned press and plough.

After the edges are trimmed, the book is rounded and backed. In this process, too, great improvement has been made. Originally this work was done by hand with a hammer, the rounding being accomplished by striking one side of the back as the book lay flat, and then the other, forming it at the same time by the hand, to give the back the convex, and the front the concave, form. Some persons are found now who think the hollow or concave front of the book is made by trimming it in that way.

The backing process gives the groove on which the cover is hinged. In olden times this was done by clamping the book in a press between backing irons, with the back projecting enough to give the proper groove, and gradually drawing it over from the centre with the hammer. In small job shops this is the practice to-day, but in large establishments it has given place to modern machines. The first innovation was what is called the roller backer. This makes the groove, the book being first rounded as described. Then came the rounder and backer, which is run by power, and both rounds and backs the book at one operation.

To show the advance made, it may be stated that 500 books was a good day's work with press and hammer. With the advent of the roller backer 1000 was a fair day's work, but when the power machine was invented, the production jumped up to 4000 and over, a day.

After the book is rounded and grooved, the back is glued and a piece of coarse woven cloth, wide enough to lap over each side an inch or more, is put on, and over this another coat of glue and a piece of paper the width of the back are applied.

The book is then ready for the cover, which is put on by pasting the first and last leaf, drawing the cover on, and putting it in press between boards whose edges are bound with a brass band, the rim projecting above the surface of the board. This rim presses the cloth between the covers and the back of the book, making a hinge upon which the cover opens. Two men can paste and press 1500 to 2000 books a day. A new machine has been put on the market within a year, that, with the same help, will do the work at the rate of 4000 a day. This process is termed "casing in."

The making of the book cover is a distinct branch in binding edition work. The pasteboard formerly was cut by hand shears, one piece at a time. It is now done by rotary shears, cutting from six to ten pieces as fast as the sheets of board can be fed to the machine.

The cloth for the cover is cut to the proper size, glued by hand, the boards laid on by gauge, and the edges turned in with a folder. A man expert at the work can make from 600 to 800 covers a day. About fifteen years ago a machine was invented, which turns out from 3000 to 4500 a day. This machine is automatic in its operation, gluing the cloth, laying on the boards, turning in the edges, and delivering a more perfect cover than can be made by hand.

Stamping the cover is a trade by itself. It requires long experience and skill to make an expert. There are several branches in this trade, such as blank or blind stamping, stamping with ink (or a colored leaf made to take the place of ink), and stamping with gold. Laying gold preparatory to stamping is a distinct branch, and is done by girls. This is such a delicate operation that it requires long experience. There has been no improvement in the principle of the stamping or embossing press since the first machines came into use. The die or stamp is held in the head of the press by clamps, and the cover is placed on the platen or bed of the press, which is raised up to the stamp by a "toggle joint" operated with a "cam."

Since covers began to be ornamented with ink, attachments have been added to the presses for inking the stamps. There have also been invented powerful printing presses, made for stamping covers in ink. The process is the same as on common printing presses.The dies used for stamping covers are cut on hardened brass, and are capable of standing an immense pressure. They are not set in chases, as are the forms on printing presses, but are glued to iron plates. The head of the press to which the plates are clamped is heated, either by running a jet of live steam through it, or by gas jets.

For gilt work, or colored leaf, heat is necessary. The cover is prepared with a coat of size. The gold or ink leaf is then laid on and an impression is given with the heated die, which melts the size and fastens the leaf only at the point where the die strikes. The surplus leaf is brushed off, leaving only the design visible.

The binding of cheap leather-covered books is essentially the same as with cloth. The difference is that the covers must be made by hand. No machine will do any part, except paring the edges of the covers. There are several machines that will do this work, one machine doing as much in a day as three men could with knife and paring stone in the old way.

Edge-gilding is another distinct branch of the trade, and is generally done before books are rounded and backed. The books are clamped, after trimming, between the jaws of powerful screw presses and the edges scraped to make them perfectly smooth. They are then colored with a mixture of red chalk, or black lead, applied with a sponge, to give the gold a dark color. A size made of the white of eggs is then applied with a brush, the gold leaf floated on, and when dry burnished with an agate or bloodstone. No machine has yet been invented that will do this work.

Edge-marbling is another branch. A shallow trough is filled with a solution of gum hog or gum tragacanth of the consistency of thick cream. Each color, which must be ground very fine, is mixed in water and ox-gall, and sprinkled separately over the surface of the gum with brushes. The ox-gall prevents the colors from mixing together on the solution, every drop being distinct. If three or more colors are used, the first one containing a little gall, the second more than the first, and the third more than the second, each color will make a place for itself by crowding the others into a narrower space. The books are held firmly in a clamp, and as the edges are dipped into the solution they take up the colors as they lie on the surface.

There are other edges called for besides the gilt, the marbled, or the plain smooth cut. The deckle edge is left uncut, just as it comes from the paper-maker. The uncut or rough cut is made by taking off any projecting edges of the leaves. There are machines for doing this, one having a circular knife rigged like a circular saw, the book being run lengthwise against it. There are also other methods of removing overhanging leaves, one by using hand shears, another by filing.In fine leather binding, while the preparation of the book for the cover is essentially the same as in cloth work, the covering is all hand-work, requiring experience and skill, and is a distinct branch of the trade.

Finishing by hand is another, and requires long experience to become an expert. Gold ornamentation requires heated tools, and in the hands of a practised finisher beautiful designs can be worked out with quite a limited assortment of rolls, straight and curved lines, and a few sprigs, dots, and stars.

In olden times, when all work was done by hand, the product of a good-sized cloth bindery was from 500 to 1000 books a day. Now, with modern machinery, in a well-equipped bindery, the product is from 5000 to 10,000 copies of an ordinary 12mo book.

There are a number of other machines in use, run by power, which have not been enumerated in the above sketch, such as wire and thread stitching machines, gluing and pasting machines, brushing machines, and last but not least a gold-saving machine, out of whose bowels large binders take from $200 to $400 worth of waste gold each month. This waste gold comes from the surplus gold brushed from the covers after stamping.[Back to Contents]