Bookbinding and The Care of Books
Douglas Cockerell with Drawings by Noel Rooke and other
Illustrations New York 1902
Bookbinding Chapter II Part 5
to make it unfit for more permanent binding unless an unreasonable amount of time is spent on
it. It is a great pity that publishers do not, in the case of books expected to have a permanent
literary value, issue a certain number of copies printed on good paper, and unbound, for the use
of those who require permanent bindings; and in such copies it would be a great help if
sufficient margin were left at the back of the plates for the binder to turn it up to form a guard.
If the plates were very numerous, guards made of the substance of the plates themselves would
make the book too thick; but in the case of books with not more than a dozen plates, printed on
comparatively thin paper, would be a great advantage.
Some books in which there are a large number of plates are cut into single leaves, which are held
together at the back by a coating of an india rubber solution. For a short time such a volume is
pleasant enough to handle, and opens freely, but before long the india rubber perishes, and the
leaves and plates fall apart. When a book of this kind comes to have a permanent binding all the
leaves and plates have to be pared at the back and made up into sections with guards – a
troublesome and expensive business. The custom with binders is to overcast the backs of the
leaves in sections, and to sew through the overcasting thread, but this, though an easy and quick
process, makes a hopelessly stiff back, and no book so treated can open freely.
When the sheets of books that have to be rebounded have
been carelessly folded, a certain amount of readjustment
is often advisable, especially in cases where the book has
not been previously cut. The title-page and the half-title,
when found to be out of square, should nearly always be
put straight. The folding of the whole book may be
corrected by taking each pair of leaves and holding them
up to the light and adjusting the fold so that the print on
one leaf comes exactly over the print on the other, and
creasing the fold to make them stay in that position.
With a pair of dividers (fig. 6) set to the height of the
shortest top margin, points the same distance above the
headline of the other leaves can be made. Then against a
carpenter’s square, adjust to the back of the fold, the head
of one pair of leaves at a time can be cut square (see fig.
7). If the book has been previously cut this process is apt
in throw the leaves so far out of their original position as
to make them unduly uneven.
on the back of a leaf does not lie exactly over that on the front.
Crooked plates should usually be made straight by judicious trimming of the margins. It is
better to leave a plate short at tail or fore-edge than to leave it out of square.
KNOCKING OUT JOINTS
The old “joints” must be knocked out of the sections of books that have been previously
backed. To do this, one or two sections at a time are held firmly in the left hand, and well
hammered on the knocking-down iron fixed into the lying press. It is important that the
hammer face should fall exactly squarely upon the paper, or it may cut pieces out. The
knocking-down iron should be covered with a piece of paper, and the hammer face must be
perfectly clean, or the sheets may be soiled.
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