Bookbinding and The Care of Books
Librarians by Douglas Cockerell with Drawings
by Noel Rooke and other Illustrations
New York
1902
Book binding Chapter XII
Part 7
through from the corner of the board to the
corner of the inside margin. The knife should be
held slightly slanting to make a cut, as shown at fig.
70. The corners should then be thoroughly
damped, and the overlapping leather from both
sides removed, leaving what should be a neat and
straight join. If the leather at the extreme corner
should prove to be, as is often the case, too thick
to turn in neatly, the corners should be opened out
and the leather pared against the thumb nail, and
then well pasted and turned back again. The
the stone with a hammer, and the sides
rubbed with a folder, to ensure square ness
and sharpness. When all four corners have
been mitered, the filling in papers can be
pasted in. As they will probably stretch a
When the boards have been filled in and well rubbed down, the book should be left for some
hours with the boards standing open to enable the filling-in papers to draw the boards slightly
inwards to overcome the pull of the leather.
joints the operation is as follows:
The waste end paper is removed,
and the edge of the board and
joint carefully cleaned from glue
and all irregularities, and if, as is
most likely, it is curved from the
pull of the leather, the board
must be tapped or ironed down
until it is perfectly straight. If
there is difficulty in making the
board lie straight along the joint
before pasting down, it will be
well first to fill in with a well
pasted and stretched thin paper,
which, if the boards are left open,
will draw them inwards. If the
leather joint is pasted down while
the board is curved, the result
will be a most unsightly
projection on the outside. When
the joint has been cleaned out,
and the board made to lie flat,
the leather should be pasted
be removed, or it will be unduly weakened. The mitering line should not come from the extreme
corner, but rather farther down, and there it is well to leave a certain amount of overlap in the
joint, for which purpose the edge of the turn-in leather and the edge of the leather joint should
be pared thin. After pasting down the leather joints the boards should be left open till they are
dry (see fig. 71). The turn-in and leather joint are then trimmed out, leaving an even margin of
leather all round the inside of the board, and the panel in the centre filled in with a piece of
thick paper.
When corners and filling in are dry, the boards may be shut up, and the book is ready for
finishing. It is a common practice to wash up the covers of books that have become stained with
a solution of oxalic acid in water. This is a dangerous thing to do, and is likely to seriously
injure the leather. Leather, when damp, must not be brought in contact with iron or steel tools,
or it may be badly stained.
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