EDITION WORK.
So slow was the process of hand folding, 2,500 signatures of three folds being a fair day's work, a single 16-folding machine was built with steel points set about 15 inches apart, over which the sheet is placed, registered exactly on the points, or holes punched into the sheet as it was beingprinted; a knife de scending makes first fold, carrying through rollers to gauges, when the second knife drops, forcing sheet through second roller, and third knife likewise, making three complete folds, and dropping them in a trough at the rate of 10,000 a day, or in other words, one machine doing the work of four hand folders.
It was soon found possible to build double 16-folding machines doing nearly 20,000 sheets daily, and at in some of the larger edition binderies, special machines have been built which will take a sheet nearly 40x60 inches in size, and will turn out 40,000 signa tures of 16 pages each, equivalent to the work of 16 girls folding by hand.
When the books are found complete, they are put through a powerful machine called a smashing machine, which compresses and makes solid the book, then to the sewing ma chine, where each signature in turn is laid over the arms, is carried to a position under a row of curved needles, punches concealed within the arms first make an incision through which the curved needle carries a thread meet ing a looper which fastens each stitch. The first and last sheets arc pasted before they are placed over the arms and when finished the book is cut apart from the following book and the thread is held by the pasting of signature from unraveling.
Following the sewing, books are re smashed, the linings and cloth joint pasted in and books are ready for trimming. If it is to be marbled or gilt, the back is tipped with glue to keep the signatures from getting out of square or becoming irregular.
To remove the rough and un even edges of the signatures, the book should be cut or trimmed. This may be accomplished in the straight cutter, a machine using one knife which, making a clean, smooth cut, de scends while book is clamped, in some ma chines with a hand clamp, in others, automati cally. This machine, while very satisfactory in its results, has given way for the trimming of editions of books to automatic trimmers of various makes, which, unlike the process of trimming in the straight cutter, trims the edges of the top, front and bottom of book without removing from machine. An improvement on the automatic trimmer is a machine using two knives with each cut of machine, and while the output of this machine is very large, there has just been installed in one of our large school-book binderies a continuous cutter which permits the books to be constantly fed into the machine, and the output is so large, the ma chine is in a class by itself.
After trimming and gilding, marbling or coloring, it is glued over back with thin coat ing of glue well rubbed in between the signa tures to prevent the breaking between signa tures, which, while not taking from the strength of binding, looks as if poorly bound; just be fore glue is dried too thoroughly, book is fed against the gauges of the rounding and back ing machine, the front rolls of machine draw ing or rolling the round under pressure, then carried to back part of machine where a back ing plate rotates against the back and forms the joints. This machine will do the work of
six to eight men.
After the process of rounding and backing, headbands are prepared by forming muslin over a cord or twine; the backs of books are thoroughly glued, headbands affixed at top and bottom of back, crash lining cut to extend about one inch or more over the joints, is rubbed on with a bone folder, heavy manila paper is then glued against the book and well rubbed in, after which books, when thoroughly dried, are ready to case in, or in other words, put in the covers which have been prepared.
Boards called binder's boards are cut in rotary cutters to proper size for books; cloth is cut sufficiently large to overlap about one half to three-quarters of an inch and fed over a cylinder which, revolving, carries it against glue rollers, which place a thin coating of glue thereon. This glued piece of cloth is carried to a certain part of machine and awaits the laying thereon of boards and strip of back lining paper which has been forwarded by a clever device from the rear part of machine. Grippers then carry it through rollers after end and side slides have turned in the cloth over the board and a rubber belt delivers it on stand completely finished.
Stamping.— The ornamentation of both cloth and leather covers for most bindings other than single books or single sets is rapidly and neatly accomplished by a process called stamping. Stamping was introduced to over come the difficulty in hand tooling the cotton cloth and principally for reason of the need of a much cheaper and quicker method for lettering and ornamenting the increased quan tities of books sold when the muslin or cloth was introduced as a binding for books.
The process of casing, as it is called, con sists in pasting the outer end leaves of a book, placing in proper position on cover and cover then is drawn over and book shifted to secure evenness of squares or margins, then built up on press boards with brass rims which press into thejoints, and after several hours' pres sure, sufficient time being given to thoroughly dry, the books are removed from press, opened up and examined, wrapped and boxed for de livery.
Bibliography.— Adam, Paul, 'Practical Bookbinding' (New York 1903); Battershall, 'Bookbinding for Bibliophiles' (Greenwich, Conn., 1906); Brassington, 'History of the Art of (London 1894) ; Cockerell, Douglas, 'Bookbinding and the Care of Books) (New York 1912) • Coutts, H. T., and Stephen, G. A., 'Manual of Library Bookbinding, Prac tical and Historical' (London 1911) ; Dana, T. C., 'Notes on Bookbinding for Libraries' (1910); Nelson, 'Works on Bookbinding from the S. P. Avery Collection' (New York 1903); Zaehnsdorf, Joseph, 'Bookbinding) (London 1906) ; Westendorf, (Die Kunst der alien Buch binder' (Halle 1909).