Bookbinding and The Care of Books
Librarians by Douglas Cockerell with Drawings
by Noel Rooke and other Illustrations
New York
1902
Book binding Chapter XV
Part 5
It is an old and good custom to put the arms of
the owner of a library on the covers of the books
he has bound. The traditional, and certainly one of
the best ways to do this, is to have an arms block
designed and cut. To design an arms block,
knowledge of heraldry is needed, Book Covers and
also some clear idea of the effect to be aimed at. A
very common mistake in designing blocks is to try
and get the effect of hand tooling. Blocks should
be and look something entirely different.
at slightly different angles, giving the work life and interest. Blocked gold being all in one plane,
has no such lights in it, and depends entirely on its design for its effect.
Provided the heraldry identifies the owner, it should be as simply drawn as it can be; the
custom of indicating the tinctures by lines and dots on the charges generally makes a design
confused, obscuring the coat it is intended to make clear. In designing heraldic blocks it is well
to get a good deal of solid flat surface of gold to make the blocked design stand out from any
gold-tooled work on the cover. Another way of putting armorial bearings on covers is to paint
them in oil paint. In the early sixteenth century the Venetians copied the Eastern custom of
sinking panels in their book covers, and painted coats of arms on these sunk portions very
successfully. The groundwork of the shield itself was usually raised a little, either by something
under the leather, or by some gesso-like substance on its surface.
Arms blocks should be placed a little above the centre of the cover. Generally, if the centre of
the block is in a line with the centre band of a book with five bands, it will look right.
Blocks are struck with the aid of an arming or blocking press. The block is attached to the
movable plate of the press called the cc platen." To do this some stout brown paper is first glued
to the platen, and the block glued to this, and the platen fixed in its place at the bottom of the
heating-box. In blocking arms on a number of books of different sizes, some nice adjustment of
the movable bed is needed to get the blocks to fall in exactly the right place.
For blocking, one coat of glaire will be enough for most leathers. The gold is laid on as for hand
tooling. The block should be brought down and up again fairly sharply. The heat needed is
about the same as for hand tooling.
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