Part 21

The finest leather for books comes from France, although a good quality is made in England and Germany, and the United States is rapidly improving its output.

The graining of the leather to bring out the natural grain in the skin, is done by hand and sometimes by electroplate reproductions of the natural grain by means of the embossing press. When large grain is wanted, the skins are shaved only slightly on the back; if small grains are wanted, the skins are shaved thinner. This process removes all roughness from the back of the skin, leaving it smooth and clean.

Formerly the binder, in preparing his covers, was compelled to pare the edges with a knife, which was a slow and laborious process; but now--thanks to the inventive American talent--he can have the whole skin split to any desired thickness or thinness, without injury; or, he can have the edges pared by cleverly devised machinery.

Leather manufacturers are able, by using splitting machines, to split skins so that both parts of a skin can be used--the upper part of the skin being called the grain and the lower the flesh. Were this not the case, it would be impossible for the binder to supply the needs of his customers, as the output does not keep pace with the constantly increasing demand. In fact, binders are constantly looking for substitutes, but, after all, there is nothing so good as leather.

THE BINDING

By Jesse Fellowes Tapley.

The changes in the methods of bookbinding during the last sixty years have been very great, and during the last twenty-five years the invention of machines for doing the work rapidly has created almost a revolution in the art.

Fifty years ago the pay of journeymen bookbinders ranged from eight to ten dollars a week, for a day of ten hours, and the cost of binding an ordinary 12mo volume of 500 pages in cloth was from sixteen to eighteen cents. To-day the same volume can be bound for eight to ten cents, with the pay of the journeyman from eighteen to twenty dollars a week, for a day of nine hours. The pay of girls has, as a general thing, been proportionally increased, while the amount of work they can turn out with the newly invented machinery is triple as much as could be done by hand, and on some branches of the work it is more than six times as much.

The first process of making a book is the folding. The sheets are usually printed so as to fold in sections of sixteen pages, with signature figures, as 1, 2, 3, or alphabet letters, as A, B, C, printed at the bottom of the first page of each section, for the guidance of the binder in placing the signatures in regular order for gathering the book.

Usually two or four forms are printed on one sheet. One girl could fold by hand from 3500 to 4000 sections of 16 pages a day. With modern machines the range is from 17,000 to 48,000, according to the make of the machine and whether it is equipped with an automatic feeder or not.

There are three styles of machines in general use. The point machine, fed by hand, has needle points on the feed board, on which is placed the sheet, which has proper holes made by the printing press. The next is called a drop-roll machine, which, if equipped with an automatic feeder, will fold 24,000 sections a day, delivering two sections at each revolution. The next is called a quadruple machine, which, with an automatic feeder, will fold 48,000 sections a day or as many as twelve girls could do by hand.

In binderies where large editions of books are done, it would be almost impossible to keep the different sections from getting mixed, unless they were put into compact bundles and tied up until the complete book is folded. This is accomplished by putting a quantity of each section into hydraulic or screw presses, with a board at the top and bottom of the bundle, which is tied with a strong cord. They are then marked with name and signature, and piled up until wanted for gathering into books.

If the book has plates printed separately from the text, they have to be inserted before it can be gathered. Plating is done by girls, 5000 being a day's work for an experienced hand.

Gathering comes next. The sections are laid out in separate piles in consecutive order, and one signature taken from each pile, making a complete book. From 30,000 to 45,000 sections is a day's work.

After gathering, the book is pressed to make it solid. This is done by passing it through a powerful press, called a smashing machine. The old-fashioned way was to pile the books between boards in a standing press, running the screw down with an iron lever, and allowing them to stay in same for several hours. In a modern smashing machine a book can be made as solid in half a minute as the standing press will make it by ten hours' pressing.

From the smashing machine it goes to the collator, by whom it is examined to see if any signature is misplaced or left out.

It then goes to the modern sewing machine. This is one of the most valuable labor-saving machines for the binder ever invented, as it almost, if not entirely, supersedes hand sewing on what is called edition work. This machine will sew from 15,000 to 18,000 signatures a day, and do it better than it can be done by hand. Each signature is sewed independently and with from two to five stitches, so that if one breaks the signature is held fast by the others, while in hand sewing the thread goes through the whole length of the signature, and if by chance it is broken, the book is ruined so far as the sewing is concerned. In addition the machine does more work, in the same time, than five or six girls sewing by hand.

After sewing, the books are prepared for trimming by "jogging up" in bunches of the proper thickness, for the cutting machine. If the work is large or the paper highly sized and slippery, a light coating of glue is applied to the centre of the back, to keep the signatures in place. In olden times books were trimmed in a press having hardwood jaws and wood screws near each end, worked with an iron lever. Into this press the books were clamped, the rough edge to be trimmed off projecting above the jaws. To trim the book, a plough was used, made of two thick side pieces of hard wood about one foot long and six inches high, with a long hand screw passing through them. (The end at the right had a handle outside of the side piece, and the end at the left engaged a screw in the left side piece.) At the bottom of the right side piece, and resting on the jaw of the press, was a sharp-pointed knife. The plough was worked back and forth, and at each motion the screw in the plough was turned enough for the knife to take a shaving from the book. To keep the plough in place, the left-hand jaw had a deep groove on its surface, in which the plough worked. This was slow and hard work.

Sometime between the years 1840 and 1850, a machine was invented in which books were clamped, and a heavy knife descended perpendicularly. This was an improvement on the old-fashioned press and plough, but it was found that, unless the knife was very sharp, the tendency was to draw the paper, and in effect jam it off rather than cut it.

To obviate this, the next move was to arrange the knife so that it would give a drawing cut, or come down on a slant, rather than a rigid descent. This is the principle on which most book and paper cutting machines are made to-day.

About 1850 a machine was invented in which a vibrating knife worked back and forth on the paper to be cut. This was thought at the time to be the best principle for a cutting machine.

Ten or twenty years later a new machine made its appearance. This one had a knife held rigidly in the frame of the machine, and the books were clamped into a carriage drawn up by a chain against the edge of the knife. It was the most rapid trimmer that had appeared, and held its position for a good many years; but in the meantime, for general work, the machines with a descending slanting knife held their own and multiplied.

Within a very short time a new machine has appeared. This has two slanting descending knives and doubles the work of the older machines, as it cuts two sides at one blow, and will trim from 7000 to 8000 ordinary books a day, against 500 or 600 by the old-fashioned press and plough.

After the edges are trimmed, the book is rounded and backed. In this process, too, great improvement has been made. Originally this work was done by hand with a hammer, the rounding being accomplished by striking one side of the back as the book lay flat, and then the other, forming it at the same time by the hand, to give the back the convex, and the front the concave, form. Some persons are found now who think the hollow or concave front of the book is made by trimming it in that way.

The backing process gives the groove on which the cover is hinged. In olden times this was done by clamping the book in a press between backing irons, with the back projecting enough to give the proper groove, and gradually drawing it over from the centre with the hammer. In small job shops this is the practice to-day, but in large establishments it has given place to modern machines. The first innovation was what is called the roller backer. This makes the groove, the book being first rounded as described. Then came the rounder and backer, which is run by power, and both rounds and backs the book at one operation.

To show the advance made, it may be stated that 500 books was a good day's work with press and hammer. With the advent of the roller backer 1000 was a fair day's work, but when the power machine was invented, the production jumped up to 4000 and over, a day.

After the book is rounded and grooved, the back is glued and a piece of coarse woven cloth, wide enough to lap over each side an inch or more, is put on, and over this another coat of glue and a piece of paper the width of the back are applied.

The book is then ready for the cover, which is put on by pasting the first and last leaf, drawing the cover on, and putting it in press between boards whose edges are bound with a brass band, the rim projecting above the surface of the board. This rim presses the cloth between the covers and the back of the book, making a hinge upon which the cover opens. Two men can paste and press 1500 to 2000 books a day. A new machine has been put on the market within a year, that, with the same help, will do the work at the rate of 4000 a day. This process is termed "casing in."