Bookbinding and The Care of Books
Douglas Cockerell with Drawings by Noel Rooke and other
Illustrations New York 1902
Bookbinding Chapter IV Part 1
SIZING
perished, and such paper can often be made perfectly sound by resizing.
For size, an ounce of isinglass or good gelatin is dissolved in a quart of water. This should
make a clear solution when gently warmed, and should be used at about a temperature of 120°
F. Care must be taken not to heat too quickly, or the solution may burn and turn brown. If the
size is not quite clear, it should be strained through fine muslin or linen before being used.
When it is ready it should be poured into an open pan (fig. 17),
ready the sheets to be sized can be put in one after another and taken out at once. The hot size
will be found to take out a great many strains, and especially those deep brown stains that come
from water. If there are only a few sheets, they can be placed between blotting paper as they are
removed from the size; but if there is a whole book, it is best to lay them in a pile one on the
other, and when all have been sized to squeeze them in the “lying press” between pressing
boards, a pan being put underneath to catch the liquid squeezed out. When the sheets have
been squeezed they can be readily handled, and should be spread out to dry on a table upon
clean paper. When they are getting dry and firm they can be hung on strings stretched across
the room, slightly overlapping one another. The strings must first be covered with slips of clean
paper, and the sized sheets should have more paper over them to keep them clean.
Before sizing it will be necessary to go through a book and take out any pencil or dust marks
that can be removed with india rubber or bread crumbs, or the size will fix them, and it will be
found exceedingly difficult to remove them afterwards.
When the sheets are dry they should be carefully mended in any places that may be torn, and
folded up into sections and pressed. A long, comparatively light pressure will be found to
flatten them better and with less injury to the surface of the paper than a short, very heavy
pressure, such as that of the rolling-machine.
In some cases it will be found that sheets of old books are so far damaged as to be hardly
strong enough to handle. Such sheets must be sized in rather a stronger size in the following
way: - Take a sheet of heavily-sized paper, such as notepaper, and carefully lay your damaged
sheet on that. Then put another sheet of strong paper on the top, and put all three sheets into
the size. It will be found that the top sheet can be easily lifted off, and the size be made to flow
over the face of the damaged sheet. Then, if the top sheet be put on again, the tree sheets, if
handled as one, can be turned over and the operation repeated and size induced to cover the
back of the damaged leaf. The three sheets must then be taken out and laid between blotting-
paper to take up the surplus moisture. The top sheet must then be carefully peeled off, and the
damaged page laid face downwards on clean blotting-paper. Then the back sheet can be peeled
off as well, leaving the damaged sheet to dry.
The following is quoted from “Chambers’ Encyclopaedia “on Gelatine: -
“Gelatine should never be judged by the eye alone.
“Its purity may be very easily tested thus: Soak it in cold water, then pour upon it a small
quantity of boiling water. If pure, it will form a thickish, clear straw-coloured solution, free
from smell; but if made of impure materials, it will give off a very offensive odour, and have a
yellow, gluey consistency.”
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