The materials required in finishing are paste, size, glair, and oil. The first is the ordinary thick paste of the bookbinder. The size is made with parchment or vellum cuttings, such as are rounded off from account-book covers. When size is required, a quantity of these parchment clippings are cut up very small, put into a pipkin of glazed earthenware, covered with clean water, and set on the fire to boil. The pipkin should have a tin lid to keep out soot. After being boiled, and then allowed to cool, the size should be a jelly of such consistence that, if the pipkin be inverted, the size will not run out.

The size is reheated every time it is used.
The glair is made of the whites of eggs well beaten up, as follows: Break a number of eggs, according to the quantity of glair you require, and get the whites into one vessel, without a particle of yolk. Then put in the "devil" (see' Fig. 18), and, taking the handle between the palms of both hands, cause it to revolve rapidly. This will quickly beat the glair up into foam; which will fill the cup, mug, or other vessel containing it. If put by for a while, the white will subside from the froth, and should be poured out into another vessel. This is glair, and differs from the ordinary white of egg, in this-that whereas the latter is stringy and ropey, so that it would not lie evenly on any surface, the glair is as limpid as water, and can be evenly spread on anything; hence "beating up" the glair well with the devil is indispensable to the finisher's success.

Some kind of oleaginous substance is required to be applied to the leather after glairing, and immediately before the contact of the gold. We, and most bookbinders, prefer olive oil but many use lard, and some say that nothing equals a palmoil candle.

The first step in the finishing process is to paste-wash the books. We may mention that, in an ordinary shop, a certain number of books, known as a "batch," are generally forwarded together, and also finished together. There are certain advantages in dealing with a batch of, say, twenty books, which would be wanting if they were either forwarded or finished by couples. For the paste-washing, then, the back of the book is smeared over with the thick paste. If it be a calf book, the paste is then well rubbed up and down the back with the edge of a blunt folder. .A sponge, dipped in clean water, is next taken, and the paste removed from the back; and the sides, corners, or other portions of the leather are washed over with the combined paste and water remaining on the sponge. The latter is then well squeezed out in the water, and the book washed over with clear water alone. This paste washing is intended to fill up holes, pores, and interstices in the leather, so as to form a good level foundation for the size and glair.

The paste washed books are now left to dry, and are next washed over with hot size, applied with a piece of sponge. When the size is dry, they are glaired; the glair is also applied with a piece of clean sponge. The number of times the glair is applied depends upon the kind of leather. For sheep and roan, one good glairing over will be sufficient; for morocco, the same. On morocco, however, the sponge is not generally used, but the glair is applied only at such places as are to be gilded,. with a camel-hair pencil. Calf is glaired three times-first, over the back, sides and corners; second and third, over the back only. Each coat must be allowed to dry before the next is applied. When the last application is just dried, but not hard, the finishing may begin.

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