Practical Bookbinding Part 4

If sheets are found badly folded they must now be properly re-folded.

Any torn places must be repaired. A special chapter ought really to be devoted to this, for repairing and restoring is an art in itself. Here, only the most necessary work can be mentioned.

There are three different kinds of tears: tears in the print, in the margin, and in the back. The first may be torn with slanting edges; in such a case, both edges must be carefully pasted, fitted to each other, a piece of paper laid over and under, and then well rubbed down. If the tear has not slanting edges, but is clean cut, it is always best to paste the edges likewise and to join the pieces by overlapping very slightly. It always looks better than the patching with strips of paper--a method adopted even by good workmen. The pasting on of pieces of tissue paper is to be condemned.

In cases of repairs like the foregoing, a piece of unpasted tissue paper may be laid on the repaired place and rubbed down, so that any paste exuding cannot do harm, and besides, it will serve to strengthen a weak place. It may be used, however, only on condition that the tint is exactly the same as that of the other paper.

Tears at the margin are repaired by pasting on strips of the same paper or of a kind as near as possible in texture and tint. To make the mend less noticeable, the paper should be torn beforehand, that is to say, by tearing one side of the paper the edge is less sharply defined and appears more like part of the sheet and is hardly perceptible.

Tears in the back (if outside) leaves are mended by pasting them down on to the following inner leaf; afterwards the glue makes this place still stronger. If the middle leaf is likewise torn, a narrow strip is pasted into the back. This may be cut true by the straight-edge if a very narrow strip suffices, but if the tear is here also sideways a piece of torn paper must be pasted on. If there are backs, torn off corners, or the like to be put in, a suitable paper is selected, a piece a little larger than the missing piece cut off the edge of the damaged leaf neatly pasted, the patch laid on slightly overlapping, and well rubbed down under a piece of waste paper. When thoroughly dry, the loose edges of the patch should be carefully torn off so as to slope and taper off nicely.

When all parts are repaired and the sheets again in proper order, the book is pressed for a while between boards.

It is thus that good books are treated, and although it would be better to return books of no special value as not worth the labour, still it does happen that cheap books--mostly school books and periodicals--have to be repaired. A quick way of getting through such work is as follows:--

A larger piece of similar paper is well pasted and laid upon a clean cutting-board, and from this piece strips of the required width are cut, laid down in their place, and cut to length with the shears, and well rubbed down under waste paper. If the pasted piece becomes dry before it is used it must be coated again.

All repaired sheets must be laid between mill-boards to dry.

Worn and damaged periodicals are repaired in the same way. Generally the numbers are curled towards the fore-edge. Before commencing to pull to pieces they should be rolled towards the back, especially close to the back, to straighten them. The leaves must all be well pushed into the back, turned down corners (so-called dogs' ears) must be turned up, and two-page ill.u.s.trations must be pasted away from the back. There are generally single or double leaves at the end of each copy or sheet--these must be pasted on. This work is not done singly, but the whole volume is at once laid open from back to front for pasting. All parts of the sheets to be pasted are placed at the front edge of the table, the edges fanned out, the other sheets wherein they are to be placed being meanwhile pushed further back so that they are not touched during pasting. The fanned-out sheets are pasted and each is rubbed down on to the sheet following.

It has already been said that in pulling to pieces the wire or thread sewing must be removed; this is not always easy. To begin with, the wires must be first bent upwards; if they are firmly glued to the outside of the back, the latter has first to be softened by smearing it very thickly with paste, and after leaving it some little time the glue may be sc.r.a.ped off and the wires loosened. Not until then can the wires inside the sheets be removed and the sheets separated. The backs of books that have been bound are softened in the same way.

Even to-day--Heaven help us!--well-got-up books, even ill.u.s.trated works, are sewn through sideways with coa.r.s.e wire staples. Great care must be used in removing these and in separating the sheets, so that the bookbinder may at least try to undo the harm caused by barbarous methods practised either in thoughtlessness or ignorance.

It sometimes happens that the back of a book is so bad that it is necessary to cut it clean off. The leaves are then made up into sections of 6 to 8, levelled at the back, and overcast with a fine needle and fine thread. This work can be done quicker with an ordinary sewing-machine, adjusting it for the longest st.i.tch.

New works consisting of thin single sheets are done in the same way.

CHAPTER II.

SEWING.

Modern books are fastened together by sewing; as a rule thread is used, and always in sewing good books. Thread sewing is very much better than wire st.i.tching. In the first place, thread has not the disadvantage of rusting, to which wire is always subject; secondly, thread does not break the paper in the back, as so frequently happens when cheap paper containing much wood fibre is wire-st.i.tched. The greatest advantage of thread sewing over wire lies in the flexibility of the spun thread; with sharp pressure it lies flat in the sheet, whilst wire does not give at all. Besides, it is flexible the whole length, and this adds greatly to the life of the book.

All thread sewing is now done by machinery and is really satisfactory.

Only the very smallest job shops sew their books by hand.

The principle of sewing is to fasten each sheet to several cords or bands by means of a long thread running right along the inside of the sheet. These cords give the book its hold to the cover; therefore the more cords used, the more firmly is the book secured to its cover. There are now two methods of fastening the sheets on the cords; first, there is the older method of pa.s.sing the thread along and out of the sheet, around the cord, and again into the sheet, and repeating the same movement at the next band.

Fig. 21--Arrangement of threads in old style of sewing.

Nowadays, this method is almost entirely discarded. When for special reasons, or on account of its greater strength, it is desired to imitate the old method, the sewing is done on double cords; that is to say, for every cord two cords are stretched alongside each other and regarded as one. This sewing is more tedious, as the thread must take up each cord as shown in Fig. 22.

Fig. 22--Arrangement of threads with double cords.

These somewhat elaborate modes of sewing have been simplified in recent years by making saw-cuts in the back, in which the cords are laid. By this means the sewing thread never actually pa.s.ses out of the sheet, but is drawn behind the cord lying in the saw-cut and thus holds it.

That is why we "saw-in" our books. The sawing-in is done with a broad saw; the so-called "tenon saw" being the one most generally used. The saw-cut must correspond exactly to the thickness of the cord to be used, should be less deep than wide, and should not take up too much glue when glueing up, as this might easily turn brittle. By inclining the saw to right and left alternately during sawing, the resulting cut will be something like this /__; this is the best and most usual form. The common practice of widening the cut by means of a coa.r.s.e file gives a triangular cut like this / which is objectionable, as the groove gets filled with glue, thus rendering the thread liable to break. As many cuts must be made in the book as there are cords to be used, besides the so-called kettle st.i.tch at head and tail by which the thread is pa.s.sed from one sheet to the other. Dividing the back for sawing-in is done by marking off 1 cm. from the head and twice as much from the tail and dividing the rest into equal portions with the dividers. An octavo should never be sewn on less than four cords, and a folio on six. If obliged to use less through low prices, then three must be taken as the minimum number, and that only in exceptional cases. If the books are very small--as, for instance, prayer-books and hymn-books less than 7 cm. in height--it may then be permissible to sew on two cords. The division for the different sizes for sawing-in is made as shown in Fig. 23.

Fig. 23--Divisions for sawing-in.

The saw-cuts at the kettle st.i.tch are less deep and quite narrow; they only mark the place where the thread is to pa.s.s in and out.

It may be wondered why the distances between the cords, when using four or six, are unequal; the reason for this will be explained when we come to the sewing of such sizes.

In sawing-in, the batch to be sawn is knocked up head and back and put between two boards--if the volumes are thin, several may be laid together--so that the back projects about 1/2 cm. beyond the edges of the boards. The first and last sheet of each volume have previously been laid aside, as these, with one exception, are not sawn-in.

Books and boards are now clamped in a small hand-press, which is screwed up by hand only. For convenience of working, the press with the screws is laid flat upon the table, so that the nuts are against the table edge. The press is propped up at the back by the press-jack. The divisions for the cords are marked on the back with a lead pencil after measuring with the dividers, and the cuts made according to the markings. If several volumes of the same size are to be sawn-in, the top sheet of the first batch sawn is used as a guide for marking the others, thus saving the work of measuring each one with the dividers. Where much sawing-in is done, a sawing-in machine is employed. The sheets are placed, backs downwards, in a moveable box, which is led over a system of circular saws.

Fig. 24--Machine for sawing-in.

After the work of sawing-in, the first and last sheets are replaced, the volumes again collated, and the end papers put in place; the sheets are now ready for sewing.

End papers are the blank leaves which the binder places at the beginning and end of a book. They vary according to the style of the book. Every end paper consists of a "fly leaf" (this lies over the t.i.tle page in the book), the "paste-down," and in most cases of a "tear-off." For the stronger end papers and in half-leather bindings a cloth joint is used.

Whilst dealing with these end papers, we must not forget the narrow guard; it is worked on the prepared end paper (as will be shown later) by folding over, and serves to enclose the t.i.tle or end page with which it is sewn. The words joint, guard, and swell may here be more clearly explained, as they are used very frequently in the bindery. In the first place, we call the part where back and cover are joined by a sort of hinge "the joint," also strips of leather, cloth, &c., used for making this part are called "joints"; secondly, the slightly raised part of the back, caused by pressing or sewing, is shortly called "the swell"; and any strips of linen or paper fastened into the back of the book for hingeing maps, plates, &c., are called "guards."

For use as end papers, a paper must be selected which suits in quality and tone the printed paper. Nothing shows lack of taste more than the use of a blue end paper with a paper of yellow tone. For both back and front a double sheet is necessary and is cut the required size. A paper guard, about the width of three fingers, is made from a piece of stout waste paper and pasted on a narrow margin at the back of the double leaf, in order to protect it in the joint and also for fastening on the cover. If there are single leaves to be used up, two of these might be pasted to each other narrowly on the back and upon this the guard; this is the so-called double end paper.

If instead of these only a single leaf is taken, then we have a single end paper; this is used for cheap school books and generally at the back only.

The accompanying sketch shows both these end papers with the small guard already folded. This folding of the guard is not very easy for the beginner. The leaf is placed face upwards, square in front of the worker, and a very narrow margin at the back edge bent upwards about 3 mm. in width, the forefinger and thumb of both hands shaping and bending the guard, working from the centre to the ends.

Fig. 25--Suggestions for single and double end papers.

Should the sheet from which the end papers are made be a little wider than required for the end papers, the tear-off may be folded at the same time; with double end papers, the leaf which is to be pasted down later is inserted between fly leaf and tear-off, and therefore is called "insertion."

Fig. 26--Suggestion for double end paper with tear-off.

If the end papers are to have a cloth joint it must be placed within the two leaves or, better, pasted in face inwards. Double cloth joints are no longer used in printed books, as they make the end papers too thick, and in the subsequent rounding the first sheet is apt to break. The joint is here also folded on as before.

Formerly, when linen joints were used, the end paper was simply made by inserting the strip of cloth and hingeing on the outside leaf about 1 cm. from the fold. This, however, has many disadvantages, therefore the end papers are made as explained, then carefully tearing off the outside leaf in the back in pasting down and cutting it as required it is pasted on to the board, as will be more fully explained under "pasting down."

The French paste a double leaf before the first and last sheets after having pasted a covering leaf around these.

For extra work, the following style of end paper is the best; it is used in England for all high-cla.s.s work, and in Germany also it has been adopted by all the first-cla.s.s firms.

The end papers consist merely of single leaves the size of the sheet.

These are fanned out at the back to make a small margin and pasted. The first leaf is then pasted down on the end-paper sheet so as to leave a margin of about 2 mm.; the second leaf is pasted level with the back.

All end papers are proceeded with in the same way.

If these are to have a cloth joint it must be pasted on the outside also only 2 mm. wide. When the end papers are dry, they must be st.i.tched down along the back, 2 mm. from the edge, with the sewing-machine adjusted to its longest st.i.tch. It is unnecessary to knot the ends of the thread--they are cut clean off. When there is no sewing-machine, the volumes must be overcast by hand. This overcasting is done by inserting a fine needle near the back of the knocked-up sheets from above and drawing the thread almost quite through, the second and following st.i.tches all being made from above. The thread would then appear as in Fig. 27.

Fig. 27--Overcast end paper.