BOOKBINDING.

Otago Witness, Issue 3764, 4 May 1926, Page 33

BOOKBINDING.

When we see the usual pile of cheap novels, we have no thought as to how they are manufactured; or. if we have, we know only too well that they are the product of machinery. But books that, are precious as literature, and that come to us in shapes of beauty annropriate to their contents, are at once visible fls the outcome of careful manual processes, simplified in tradition. Tt is this art of hook-binding bv hand that Mist Joachim has demonstrated i n the

; Women’s Section of the Exhibition. Under ' her hands were developed the some score of j steps that go to tho covering of a book, I from tho taking of the machine-binding ! to pieces, until the final polishing of the gold leaf. The look in merely its loose sections is ! plated in the small sewing-press, and here i? sewn, through the centre cf each section, to the cords which correspond to the evenmarked divisions on the hack. This sewing done, the cords are clipped and frayed. The bdok is fastened, but the back must be stiffened. For this purpose it is covered with glue, and placed in a pros. While tho glue is still soft, the back is hammered into £ concave shape, so that the sections fan out and leave a groove. It is into this groove that the milled boards—the foundation of the covers—are laced, so that they lie flat. The next process is the pasting of the leather. For this Miss Joachim used Niger Morocco, a flexible soft leather coloured in native vegetable dyes. 'The cord.® on the back of the look are now known a? band?, and form a series of decorative ridges which are accentuated and made firm by slow* careful hammering. Inside, the leather is trimmed and paper pasted to make all neat. The progress of the book-binding to this point is known as “forwarding,” in which there are actually 29 processes. Now comes the finishing, the decorating. The volumes exhibited by Miss Joachim were of such effortless beauty that the colour and complexity of their decorating is unrealised. Hie design is first “drawn” on paper tho exact size of the area to be ornamented: it is then placed upon the columns, and, using the shoulder as a lever, tho design i? worked with a hot tool, through to the leather—or “blended in.” On rougher natural skins, as pigskin, the design has been left in its simplicity of line decoration. On the Morocco, the design is gilded. Ifc is first painted with a mixture of vinegar and white of egg: and. replacing the piece of paper by a sheet of fine, transparent gold leaf, the process is repeated. A rubber removes the superfluous gold leaf, and the final nolishing is done. A b.ild summary of the work can convey nothin" of the patience, the ingenuity, the ski.l which go to the demonstration of such a craft. It can be '•-•d that tb® enshrining of trea.®ur®s of int®llect in such casket.® of loveliness as these, is no craft, but an art.