Bookbinding and The Care of Books
Librarians by Douglas Cockerell with Drawings
by Noel Rooke and other Illustrations
New York
1902
Book binding Chapter XIV
Part 1
characteristic, way of decorating book covers is by
"tooling" Tooling is the impression of heated
(finishing) tools. Finishing tools are stamps of
metal that have a device cut on the face, and are
held in wooden handles (fig. 79). Tooling may
either be blind tooling, that is, a simple
impression of the hot tools, or gold tooling, in
which the impression of the tool is left in gold on
the leather. Tools for blind tooling are best
"diesunk" that is, cut like a seal. The "sunk" part
part depresses the leather to form a ground. Decoration In tools for gold tooling, the surface of
binding the tool gives the pattern.
Tools may be either complex or simple in design, that is to say, each tool may form a complete
design with closing border, as the lower ones on page 323, or it may be only one element of a
design, as lines may be run with a fillet (see fig. 88), or made with gouges or pallets.
Gouges are curved line tools. They are made in sets of arcs of concentric circles (see fig. 80, A).
The portion of the curves cut off by the dotted line C will make a second set with flatter curves.
Gouges are used for tooling curved lines.
as a segment of a roll or
fillet set in a handle, and
used chiefly for putting lines
or other ornaments across
the backs of books (see fig.
81.) A set of one-line pallets
is shown at fig. 80, B. Tools
Fillets are cut with two or
more lines on the edge.
Although the use of double
line fillets saves time, I have
found that a few single-line
fillets with edges of different
gauges are sufficient for
running all straight lines,
distances between any parallel lines is ample
compensation for the extra trouble involved by
their use. In addition to the rigid stamps, an endless
pattern for either blind or gold tooling may be
roll in finishing dates from the end of the fifteenth century, and some satisfactory bindings were
decorated with its aid. The ease with which it can be used has led in modern times to its abuse,
and I hardly know of a single instance of a modern binding on which rolls have been used for
the decoration with satisfactory results. The gain in time and trouble is at the expense of
freedom and life in the design; and for extra binding it is better Decoration to build up a pattern
out of small tools of simple design, which can be arranged in –Tools endless variety, than to use
rolls.
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