  Although this small pamphlet does not pretend to be a thorough manual on how to bind your own books, anyone seeking a hobby might well consider bookbinding. The procedures are simple, the necessary tools and materials need not cost a great deal, and the satisfactions one can take in the production of his own fine bindings should be obvious. What we can do here is to describe only the basic tools, equipment, and procedures that would have been used by a Williamsburg craftsman in binding a book in the most usual dress of colonial times. The practicing binder, of course, would have had a comparative wealth of tools and materials with which to turn out—by the time-honored and still-used procedures—bindings in greater number and variety of finish. The following lists represent the minimum essentials for binding a book. When the time comes for applying decoration to a binding, the bookbinder—here using a single-fillet roll—can exercise his artistic imagination or follow a traditional pattern. Materials
Tools & Equipment
The printer’s job was done when the flat sheets of paper came off his press, each sheet containing four or more printed pages arranged so that folding would bring the pages into proper sequence. The binder’s first task was to fold the Sheets folded once—into two leaves, a four-page signature—made a large-format book called a “folio.” Two folds in each sheet made eight-page signatures and “quarto” books. Three folds gave “octavo” volumes of sixteen-page signatures. A different arrangement of folds produced twelve pages in a signature and a “duodecimo” book. For any number of folds, however, a bone or ivory folder—a thin, smooth blade—was essential for rapid and accurate work. And it came in handy for a number of other binding operations, too. After he had folded all the printed sheets, the binder gathered a full set of signatures in the proper order to make the book. On his stitching frame—which was simply a four-piece vertical framework, the upper crosspiece adjustable in height—he stretched four to six leather thongs or pieces of hemp cord. With needle and strong linen thread he then stitched the signatures, one after another, through their center folds to each of the crossbands. The sewing frame held them parallel to each other and at right angles to the pages. These bands gave bound books their flexibility and created the ridges across the spine characteristic of most of them. The stitch used in sewing the signatures to the bands was about as simple as could be, but it cannot be duplicated by any machine yet devised. The crossbands and the stitching together were the keys to the all-but-everlasting durability and the flat opening of the well-made book. The binder next squared up the back of the book and applied glue to it. When dry, he put the book in the trimming press and trimmed the fore edge, head, and tail, then with his backing hammer rounded off the spine. Having cut the boards just a bit larger than page size, he punched holes through them close to their back edges. These holes he spaced in pairs to match the position of the bands, which he laced through the holes, pasted firm, and pounded smooth. Very little the binder had done so far would be visible in the finished product. But at this point he could begin to put his artistry on display. Selecting silk thread in two colors to suit his taste, he bound a narrow piece of leather across both the top and bottom of the spine, completely covering them with something like a buttonhole stitch. These “headbands” added little to the strength but much to the appearance of a book. Careful binders said that a book should no more be seen in a library without headbands than a gentleman should appear in public minus a collar. In the “trimming press and plough,” the bound pages of a book are clamped between the heavy horizontal beams of the press while a knife held in the plough slides back and forth, planing the exposed edge of the book smooth and even. Next came the “drawing on” of the cover. The binder cut a piece of calfskin approximately ¾ inch larger all around than the covers of the book opened out flat, and with his skiving knife pared the margins of the leather very thin. After the leather had been well soaked with water on the outer or grain side and with paste on the inner side, the binder carefully molded it around the spine and smoothed it onto the boards—being careful not to stretch it. The pared margins were then turned in and the volume, except for minor touches and drying, was finally ready to be decorated. Having decided on the pattern of decoration he wished to apply, the binder heated the appropriate brass tools to “blind in” the design. The tools had to be hot enough to make a sharp impression in the leather, but not hot enough If the pattern was also to be gilded, the binder prepared a solution of white-of-egg, called “glair,” and painted it into the blind impressions. Having laid gold leaf thereon, he again pressed the same heated tools carefully in the same indentations. The excess gold was then wiped off and the leather cleaned with diluted vinegar and dressed with a good leather dressing. This is the Printing Office in Williamsburg, restored to look as it did in the eighteenth century when it was occupied in succession by William Parks, William Hunter, Joseph Royle, Alexander Purdie, and John Dixon with his partners William Hunter, Jr., and Thomas Nicolson. Finally, the endpapers were pasted down to the insides of the boards and the book was complete. It took perhaps eight to ten hours of actual working time for a single volume, but spaced over as much as two weeks to allow drying time between processes. |
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