The superfluous board being ploughed off, the book is placed upon the

cheek of the cutting-press with the head to the operator, and looked through for the shortest leaf. When this is found, one point of the compasses is placed to the head and the other to the bottom (tail) of the shortest leaf, and the compasses fixed. This distance is then set off on the millboards from the head just cut, and the point at the other end, where the other leg of the compasses reaches, is squared, as at Fig. 74, and the surplus ploughed off.

A millboard is now adjusted to each side of the book (if made boards or lined boards, with the right. side inwards), and strokes

made with the bodkin along them for each cord, as at Fig. 75. It is now necessary to pierce the boards so that the bands may be passed through them. This consists in making a hole from

the outside of the board inwards at each bodkin mark, about 1/4in. from the end. This hole is shown by an 0 in Fig. 75. Similar holes are now made from the inside, shown at Fig. 75 by black dots.

These holes are made either by forcing the bodkin through the boards, or preferably by laying the millboard on a piece of smooth hard wood, and driving the "piercer''' (Fig. 76) through by a blow from a hammer.

The bands (or cords in which the book is sewed), already unraveled, as before described, are now saturated with paste, and their ends then twisted up, by the finger and thumb, to a point. Each cord is then put inwards through one of the holes nearest to the edge of the board, and outwards through one of those farthest from the back.

The cords are then drawn tolerably tight, and all the projecting part, except about tin., is cut off, the piece remaining smoothed down on the board and secured by being struck with the hammer. Each band now forms a kind of hinge, serving to hold the board to the book.
The board is now extended fiat upon the knocking-down iron, and all the cords knocked down (or riveted, as some

term it) with the backing-hammer, as at Fig. 77. Then the book is reversed, so that the cords can be beaten down on the inside of the board also, until they are smooth and level. Great care must be taken, during this operation, that the bands do not get cut. If it chance that the part of the band between the back and the board, which forms the hinge, gets drawn tightly over the sharp edge of the knocking-down iron, and struck by the hammer, it will be severed immediately.

The batch of books thus got "into boards" should now be placed between pressing-boards, with the backs projecting, in the standing-press (largest at bottom), and pulled down tightly.

In this position their backs are smeared over with the thin paste brush. The operator then takes the scratcher-up (Fig. 78, A) in his right hand, and draws it down the back of the

books from heads to tails, in such a manner that the teeth of the tool penetrate between the sections. The brush is then drawn along them again, so as to work the paste into these channels, and then the scratcher-up is drawn forcibly across the back in every direction.

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