There must be many boys who would like to know the simple methods of binding books, so that they can do it without the aid of machinery or costly tools. They are probably aware that when the material of a book comes from the hand of the printer, it consists of a number of large sheets that are commonly twenty inches long and fifteen broad. Eight pages of the book are printed on each side of a sheet in such a peculiar order that when the sheet is properly folded the pages will be correctly arranged by the numbering. To see how this is, take a sheet of paper that measures fifteen inches by twenty. With a ruler and pencil draw lines across the sheet so as to divide it into eight equal parts. Each of these parts is a page. Number them as shown in Fig. 1. Turn them over and number the pages on the other side as shown in Fig. 2. Now to fold the sheet, lay it on the table with the side up that has on it 2, 15, etc.; bring page 3 over upon page 2, creasing the sheet in the middle. Then the four pages lying upward will be numbered 4, 13, 12, 5. Bring page 5 over on page 4, and crease in the middle again. Pages 8 and 9 will now lie upward. Fold 9 over on 8, and the sheet will be folded as it should be, and is now called a signature. In a book there may be twenty or thirty, or more such signatures, which are numbered so that the binder will know in what order to place them. These numbers are placed at the bottom of the first page in each signature.
The Tools
Before beginning the work of binding, a few preparations must be made, and first of all a press is indispensable. This is very easily made. Take two pieces of board, of some close-grained hard-wood, about one and a quarter inches thick and a little larger than any book you are likely to undertake to bind. Eighteen by twenty inches will be found the most useful size. Lay your boards together, and with an inch auger bore through both three holes at each end of the boards about an inch back from the edge. Now make six pegs of hard-wood—white oak is excellent—about six inches long, and fit them tightly into one of your two boards, on one side of it; that is, the pegs should all stand out at one side. (Fig. 4.) When this is done, carefully work down the size of the pegs until they will pass freely through the holes in the other board, so that the two boards may be separated or brought close together as required. The loose or movable board (Fig. 5) should be fitted with a backstay or two, so that it will stand edgewise on a table, and the two boards together will thus form a sort of upright press or vise.
THE PRACTICE OF BOOKBINDING
Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 4. Fig. 5.
In order to furnish your press with power, you must now pass four large iron “wood-screws” loosely through the blank outer edge of the movable board into holes in the corresponding edge of the other board, where they should “bite.” When a book is put into the press it is a very easy matter to tighten the screws so as to hold it firmly. This simple, inexpensive, and easily made press may be improved in various ways; screws with winged nuts may be used, etc., but in its simplest form it will be found sufficient for all the demands the amateur binder is likely to make on it.
Next in importance to the press is the hammer, and this is the only tool you will be likely to have to buy. It should be heavy, weighing at least twelve or fourteen pounds, and should be rounded at the ends. This is used for beating and compressing the books, shaping their backs, etc. If you live near a foundry it is quite easy to make a model of wood or clay and have a hammer cast. In any case, it is not an expensive tool—any blacksmith can hammer one out in a short time.
The glue-pot may be almost any little crockery dish, but it should never be put on the stove. If you have no regular glue-pot, you can melt your glue in an old cup placed in a saucepan of boiling water.
Besides the press, hammer, and glue-pot, you must have a pair of scissors and a few simple but sharp-cutting tools. When these things are all prepared you are ready to bind your book.
The Practice of the Art
After removing everything that is not to be included in your volume, place the “signatures” or parts together in regular order, striking the backs gently on the table or bench to get them even. Then place them on a block and beat with the hammer so as to flatten and compress them as much as possible. Then they should be put very carefully into the press and the screws tightened firmly, so as to hold the volume steady. The back should project about one inch above the edge of the press. Now, with a common hand-saw, cut four slits across the back at regular intervals, not deeper than the teeth of the saw. Take the book from the press, and into each of these slits or nicks lay a piece of stout cord or twine (not too thick), and to these cords all the signatures forming the book must be fastened with pack-thread. A necessary aid to this sewing process is a small square frame of light wood. The cords must be tied to this below and above, as shown at Fig. 3, and the lower part of the frame must be sufficiently broad and flat for the book to lie upon it. After the cords are laid into or passed through their respective nicks, you must open the leaves regularly and find the middle of each signature, and then pass, with a needle, the pack-thread along the inside, but twisting it around each cord in succession as you go along, making it fast at the end with a hitch or knot. This is much easier than it sounds, and with a little practice may be done very quickly. When you have finished the sewing cut away the cords, leaving an inch and a half or so on each side, which is left to make the attachment to the cover. This completes the first stage of the binding.
The book must now be replaced in the press, and its back covered with a good coat of glue melted in the manner already described. Leave it in the press until the glue is thoroughly dry. In the mean time measure the breadth of the back and go ahead with the preparation of your cover, which may be made as follows:
Cut two pieces of thin pasteboard a little larger than your book. Also cut a piece of cloth—calico, linen, or muslin—so much larger than both pieces of pasteboard either way as to allow for the back and the turning in. Down the middle of this paste three or four strips of the same goods to strengthen the back. Carefully measure the length and breadth of the back, and lay your pasteboard covers on the table, leaving the space of the back between them. Now put on your cloth, turning it around the edges of the covers, carefully avoiding creasing or wrinkling, and lightly glue it fast as shown at Fig. 10. Your cover is now made and must be allowed to dry. Next take your book from the press, unravel and soften the projecting ends of the cord, and wet them with strong glue. Lay the book down carefully on its back into the cover and glue down the cords to the sides. The book should be supported in this position, which can be done in any number of ways, and a slip of cloth glued down over the cords to hold them steady. Then paste over all this a sheet of white or fancy paper to line each cover, and when the job is dry your work is done.
Nothing has been said about cutting the edges of the book, as that is usually done on a machine; but if you are able to trim them clean with a sharp knife, so much the better. To do this, place the book into the press before putting on the cover, bringing up each edge of the three exposed ones successively, and while held there firmly, cut them carefully with a sharp knife or shoemaker’s cutting-tool. Any little inequalities may afterwards be taken down with sand-paper. The edges when cut may be spattered with any color desired by using a common tooth-brush and water-colors.
Fig. 6. Fig. 10.
To put on the title in gilt letters, the binder applies a little of the white of an egg over the space where the letters are to be. When this is dry, rub the leather with a rag slightly greased, and then lay on the gold-leaf. Next take common type used by printers, heat them a little, and stamp on the letters. The heat makes the gold-leaf stick where it is wanted, and the rest is rubbed off with a rag. All the gilt ornamentation on book covers may be put on in a similar manner.
To get a clear understanding of these directions the boy craftsman should examine different kinds of books very closely; and if he has an old and valueless one he can take it to pieces and put it together again. Perhaps he can improve its condition. At least he will learn some of the minor details. He must remember that in bookbinding, as in all other arts, patience and repeated trials are requisite for acquiring the skill that produces neat and handsome work.
Rebinding Books
It is not always possible for a boy to purchase cloth-bound volumes of his favorite authors, as they cost quite a little money. But he may often procure them in paper covers, and if he is careful to select stitched books, rather than those simply caught together with wire or “wire sewed,” as they are termed, it will be possible for him to rebind them in cloth at a slight expense.
To begin with, strip off the paper cover, taking care not to tear the printed title on the cover, nor that at the back of the book, if it is possible to save it. Both of these will be useful in the rebound volume. With a penknife and sand-paper remove as much as possible of the paper cover that has been glued to the back of the book, taking care not to cut away any of the stitching; otherwise the book would fall apart. The book in this condition, ready for its “case” or cover, is shown in Fig. 6. If the signatures have been caught together with wire, remove the latter with a pair of pliers; then sew the pages as already described. Get two pieces of white paper the same thickness and quality of which the book is made, and fold them over once, as shown in Fig. 7. With paste or liquid glue attach one at each side of the book by running the paste along one side of the folded edge of paper for a quarter of an inch, as shown by the shaded line in Fig. 7. This is called “tipping,” and where a page or two have become detached or not properly bound in, this method is employed to reset it.
When these pages are in place, trim them so as to correspond to the size of the book; then glue the back of the book well and attach a piece of crash to the back as shown in Fig. 8. The crash should be a trifle shorter than the height of the book, or about half an inch at each end, and there should be at least an inch of the material on either side of the book, as shown in the illustration. This material is known as “crash” in the bookbinding trade, but it is nothing more than a coarse-thread cloth with open mesh, and it is sold in dry-goods stores under the name of crinoline.
From clay-board or stiff card-board, binders’ board, or strawboard, cut two pieces an eighth of an inch wider and a quarter of an inch longer than the actual size of the book. These are for the front and back corners. Lay the binding material—buckram, cloth, or leather—on a table or smooth board face down. Now, with a lead-pencil, mark two parallel lines through the middle, as far apart as the thickness of the book plus the thickness of the covers, as shown at A A in Fig. 9. Then mark a line across one end at right angles to these, as shown at B. Apply glue to the covering material and place the card-boards on the spaces C C, so that the inner edge and top of each board will line with the pencil-marks A and B. Press the boards down with the fingers; then turn the cloth and boards over and press with a dry cloth, rubbing over the surface to drive down the cloth in any place where it does not seem to have adhered. With scissors or a knife cut off the corners as shown at D, taking care not to approach too close to the corner of the boards. Leave about one-eighth of an inch of cloth beyond the corners, so that it will cover them when the edges of the cloth are turned over. These edges should be about half an inch in width. After applying glue to them, lap them over on the card-boards, as shown at Fig. 10, and rub them with the soft cloth to drive out all air from between these edges and the boards.
REBINDING AN OLD BOOK
Fig. 7. Fig. 8. Fig. 9.Fig. 11.
When the four sides are finished, the cover or case is ready to receive the book. Lay the case open on a table, just as you see it in Fig. 10, and apply glue to the space between the card-boards, and also on the card-boards for an inch or so from the inner edges. Now take the book in hand, and place it so that the back will rest on the space of cloth between the boards, leaving an equal projection of the cover above and below the board, or about one-eighth of an inch. With the fingers press the projecting flaps of crash down on the glued surface of the cards at either side of the book; then lift both covers up to the sides of the book (still allowing it to rest on its back), and with both hands press the covers together as hard as you can. Hold it in this position for a few seconds; then carefully lay the book on its side and place a flat-iron upon it for five minutes.
At the end of this time carefully lift one cover and apply glue or paste to the first fly-leaf (that is one of the pages you tipped in), and press it against the inside of the cover, taking care, however, not to allow the paper to wrinkle. Turn the book over and repeat this on the other side; then replace the flat-iron and leave the book under pressure for a day or two; or, better yet, arrange it in between the pressure-boards described for Figs. 4 and 5, and leave it there overnight.
If the first page has adhered to the glue about the edges of the crash, it will be necessary to carefully pull it away, taking care not to tear this first page or lining sheet, nor to disturb the crash. If liquid glue is used, it will not set hard enough in the five minutes to render it impossible to remove the paper. If hot glue is employed, it will not be necessary to close the book and press it, for the glue will set very quickly, and the first and last pages may be pasted and laid over the inside of the covers at once, so that when placed under pressure and left there the crash, glue, and paste can set and dry at the same time.
The object of pasting the blank pages to the inside of the covers is to make a good finish to the binding, and also to lend additional strength to the attachment of book and case. Fancy end-papers and richly tinted or colored ones are often used as linings, as you can see in many books. These are always tipped in as described, so that they will be the first and last pages in the book.
From the paper cover (which you removed from the book before binding it) cut the title, and, with glue, apply it to the front cover near the top, as shown in the illustration of the finished book (Fig. 11). If the back title has been preserved that can be pasted along the back.
How to Extra-illustrate a Book
Every one knows how much more interesting is an illustrated book than one without pictures. What a satisfaction it would be to us if we could illustrate our favorite books ourselves! What pleasure we would take in it! This is entirely possible. It is a comparatively easy matter to illustrate a book, or, in the case of a book that already contains pictures, to extend and increase the illustration by means of old prints, engravings, and pictures gathered from various sources, and bound in with the leaves of the book. This is called “extra-illustrating,” and has long been a favorite amusement of collectors.
A book that is carefully and judiciously extra-illustrated is not only much more attractive in appearance, but its value is greatly increased, and the amount of pleasure and instruction to be gained by the extra-illustration of one book is a rich reward for the trouble and time it costs.
The first thing to be done in the extra-illustration of a book which has been selected for the purpose is the collection of the pictures. This will often take some time, and should never be done in a hurry. Old magazines and illustrated papers will supply many of the necessary pictures, while old books and the shops devoted to the sale of old prints and engravings will furnish others.
Suppose The Three Musketeers to be the book chosen. A portrait of the author should be selected for a frontispiece. Other portraits, representing the author at different ages, may be used in the book; but that which serves as the frontispiece should be one made about the time he wrote the book.
The other illustrations should consist of pictures referring as nearly as possible to the scenes and incidents described in the story. Pictures of an author’s home or portraits of members of his family are always useful; but no picture, however interesting in itself, should be included if it does not bear directly upon the scenes in the book, or is not in some way connected with the author.
When a sufficient number of illustrations have been selected, they should be mounted ready for binding. This is the difficult part, and must be done with great care.
Take a sheet of strong paper, as nearly as possible the same color and weight as the paper upon which the book is printed, and cut it the exact size of the page of the book. Then trim your print close to the work, being careful to see that the edges are perfectly straight. Cut out from your sheet of paper a hole exactly the shape of the print, but an eighth of an inch smaller on all sides. This opening should not be exactly in the middle of the page, but a little above the middle and a little to the left, so as to give wider margins at the bottom and on the right. Now gum or paste the edges of the print on the under side with great care, and place it over the opening so that it is even on all sides. As there is a difference of only a sixteenth of an inch on the four sides, it is a delicate matter to place the print on the mount accurately, but after a little practice it can be done quite easily and quickly.
After the prints are mounted, they should be pressed until dry. Then the cover of the book should be carefully removed with the aid of a sharp knife. Never mind about ruining the blank pages or fly-leaves, for they will be replaced by the binder when he puts the cover on again; but care should be taken to avoid cutting or tearing any of the printed pages. When the cover is removed, it will be found that the book is put together in sections laid one on top of another. These sections consist of sixteen or some other number of pages each, and a section is known in a printing-office as a “signature.” The threads that sew the book should be cut, and the signatures should be carefully separated from each other.
Then the mounted prints should be laid in as nearly as possible opposite the incidents they illustrate. The prints should always be inserted face up, and the sidewise full pages with the bottom of the picture towards either the outside or inside margin of the book. Now your book is ready for the binder. Perhaps your extra-illustration has been so extensive as to increase the bulk of the book so much that the original cover will not go on again, and perhaps enough has been added to make the one volume into two, in which case your binder can supply you with simple covers at a very slight expense.
Books of travel, or stories of hunting, fishing, etc., may be beautifully illustrated by photographs. Unmounted prints are to be desired, although it is possible to take prints off mounts by a liberal soaking in warm water. The soft-finished photographs, such as bromide and platinum prints, are vastly better than the shiny albumen prints.
Photographs should be mounted in the same way as other prints, except that no openings are to be made in the mounts. The prints should be pasted on flat and pressed until dry. Albumen prints have a tendency to curl up, and it will require a pretty stiff paper to keep them flat. This is one of the reasons why platinum or bromide prints are so much better. When albumen prints are used they must be mounted wet, and should afterwards be burnished, which can be done by any professional photographer. An amateur photographer can have the fun in many cases of making the pictures himself for the book he wants to extra-illustrate, and the finished work will have an added interest and value to him.
The use of photographs, especially if many are included, will greatly increase the thickness of a book, and it will generally be found advisable to have the binder make it into two volumes of equal size.
A Circulating Library
In a small town, or in a residential section of a city where most of the young people are acquainted with one another, a circulating library may be formed at a nominal cost. This can be done in two ways: the first plan is for the members to contribute the books—from one to ten volumes—as may be agreed upon. Many people hesitate to lend books, because they “fly off and never come home to roost,” but by the circulating-library system law and order can be maintained. One of the most successful libraries of this kind was carried on for a number of years in a New York town. The young people, in due time, became married men and women, but through the association of the library they continued to hold together like a great big family.
A regular set of by-laws were established and lived up to. Books could be drawn each week, on a day set for this purpose. A librarian was selected, and in his house the bookcase was located. There were three locks on the case. The key of one was held by the librarian, another by the president, and the third by the secretary and treasurer. Regular dues were assessed on each member—twelve cents a year at first; then fifty-two cents, and finally one dollar. Books kept over two weeks were charged for at the rate of one cent a week, doubling each week for four weeks. This fine made it imperative for the subscribers to return books at the end of three weeks or suffer a heavy penalty.
Another popular scheme was carried out by the children in the Glenwood section of Greater New York. They held a fair some years ago, and made quite a little money. They then purchased paper-covered books by good authors and rebound them in cloth. A bookcase was constructed that held over one hundred volumes, and the same co-operative plan was inaugurated that has just been described.