Category: history of bookbinding

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1532 Press

german-press1

 

This is a detail from the 12 brothers foundation, a link is listed in the post below.  A few thoughts about the press pictured in the portrait of Hans Landaver, dated 1532.  Foote identifies this as a small standing press.  I think it is a German style press that is lying on it’s side– often these are used to clean spines or tie up when covering. It would make little sense to press a book like this once the bosses and corners were attached- more likely it is holding the book for purposes of illustration.  Especially when viewed from this angle, it is uncannily similar to a sewing frame– in fact the edge of the bench almost mimics a top crossbar. This press is puzzling, and I can’t figure out how it would function.  I assume the squarish nuts that form the ends of the screws would be used to tighten this press, but the smaller circles on them seem to indicate they don’t move along the thread.  Possibly the wood is directly threaded? Maybe they function to keep the threads from pulling through, and both pieces of wood are drilled for clearance, and a nut would be attached from the other side?  The thread angle is roughly 45 degrees, which would be unusable, but it is a fairly common artistic convention for the time.

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Good Diehl

Edith Diehl’s “Bookbinding: Its Background and Technique”, thanks in part to an inexpensive and ubiquitous Dover reprint, is perhaps one of the most common introductory bookbinding manuals.  Although frequently maligned for propagating innacuracies, especially the historical section, the practical section is informative and well done.  I use her sequence of leather covering steps when teaching– it is a clear, calm list of what needs to be done. Panicking students, covering their first full leather binding, often find it reassuring.  Her diagrams in general are concise and present the relevant information in an easy to follow manner.

 

diehl-hammer2

 

This hammer came from her studio, via Gerard Charrier, who purchased many of her tools. It is a large London pattern cramping hammer and according to Salaman, Barnsley’s 1890 catalog of cobblers tools lists six sizes of them, this one is a “No. 1”.  It is similar to a French hammer and is used to paning the sole edge, heel breast and waists of shoes. He also notes that this style of hammer was already going out of fashion by 1839!  The head is quite large, 55mm, so I don’t use it for binding- more often to tenderize pork when making tonkatsu, or in place of a proper beating hammer.  Even though I don’t use it for binding, the feeling of using historic tools remains somewhat inexpressible. Touching the  smooth worn areas at the end of handle, examining dirt near the head, or polished areas around the cheeks, gives me direct tactile and visual information about how Diehl held it.  The makers mark is fragmentary, but it starts “CHAMMO…” with “CAST STEEL” stamped underneath.   This hammer must have been the one she copied for the illustration below, unless she had more than one of them.  The illustration is from page 143 of the Dover edition.

 

diehl-hammer

 

Diehl  likes a large and heavy  hammer, feeling they are less likely to damage signatures by leaving small indentations in the spine.  She also makes the point that when using a heavy hammer, its weight does most of the work, so there is less danger of forcing it and damaging the signatures.  She specifically recommends that the hammer should be weighted so that the face balances even if no one is holding the handle, as both the photo and figure clearly show.  I find it a bit odd, given the attention to detail in most of her diagrams, that she didn’t depict the eye in this one. There are two photographs of students using a similar London pattern hammer in Palmer’s 1927 manual “A Course on Bookbinding for Vocational Occupation”, found on the frontispiece  and on page 38. One is using the face to back a book, the other the  peen. 

I also have a book from Diehl’s library. Her gold stamped book plate is quite lovely. It only measures 35mm high and 27mm wide and I assume it is St. Jerome.

 

diehl-bookplate1

 

 

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Paper Knives

The celluloid paper knife below  is a late 19th or early 20th century and  issued as advertising from the A.N. Kellogg Newspaper Company.  I’m confused about distinctions between paper knives, letter openers, page turners and even bone folders.  Neither Etherington or Glaister define their differences, and a few quick internet searches seem to lead to antique dealers selling Victorian versions.  So here is my first attempt at a definition: a paper knife is a large, special purpose type of bone folder, usually with a distinct handle and sharp blade.  It is often made from wood, bone, ivory or celluloid.  It is shaped to allow the user to rapidly slit paper folds.

The marking on the blade  reads “Proprietors of Kellogg’s lists established 1865″.  Kellogg’s list was a compilation of  ” Family weekly newpapers of a better class”  with price lists for advertising.  The proprietors seem quite savvy with marketing- note the book Google  scanned was donated by the publishers to Harvard College Library in 1897.  The surface of the celluloid contains a grain like structure, presumably in order to resemble bone or horn.  When a new material is introduced, it often contains superficial decoration to make it appear more like the original material, this is called a skeuomorph.  Book structures contain many examples of these as well– artificially grained leather, stuck on endbands, fake raised bands, etc….

 

paper-knife

 

pear-paper-knife

I didn’t want to damage the original, so I made a reasonably accurate reproduction out of Swiss pearwood.  When testing the knife, one feature immediately became apparent due to the gentle curve.  It is possible to use the knife to slit a fold moving towards the left, as illustrated below, or moving it forward with the top edge of the knife. It is not so comfortable for folding, if you are holding the handle, since it is so long and the edges are quite sharp, which also supports my hypothesis that this is a single purpose professional knife, and not a general purpose folder. Whoever used it must have had pre-folded sheets. Given the overall length of 12″, I wondered if it was intended as an in house distribution for the various press rooms that were part of the Kellogg empire.  I am unclear why the end of the handle is so pointed– it seems potentially dangerous– did it have some special purpose, or was it supposed to resemble the end of an horn?  In the original, the handle is chipped at the very tip, possibly it was used to open packages?

Paper knives must have been fairly popular, an introductory text for woodworking has making one as a project, although it looks rather crude and slightly dangerous, with the sharp angles.

10-paper-knife-119

              Schwartz, Everett. Sloyd Educational Trainning Manual . N.P.:Educational Publishing Company, 1893.

The rounded handle on this model seemed more comfortable than the one I made, but there are similarities in the shape of the curve and overall length and width.  If I am recalling my mechanical drawing class from High School correctly, it seems the sharp edge of the knife is only on the top of the drawing, which suggests it would be used by pushing forward. The text, in six succinct sentences, describes the fabrication of this knife.  I’m always impressed by the level of common sense that is presumed in 19th C. and earlier manuals, and by the familiarity with the full range of woodworking tools, from  axe to scraper. Contrast this with a current Utube video tutorial which demonstrates how to apply beeswax to linen thread!

“Have the pupil cut from a 1-2” board a piece 2″ x 11″. With the use of axe, plane, tenon-saw and knife prepare an oblong 9-32″ x 1 9-16″ x 9 1-8″. Place drawing upon one of the sides and with the use of tenon and turning-saws cut to within 1-16″ of the line. Cut with the knife and file up to lines. Round and sharpen edges according to drawing. Finish with file, scraper and sand-paper.” (Schwartz, Project 10)

The coolest paper knife I have found is this patented combo paper knife (C), shears, eraser (D), paper folder (E) and seal (F).  This is supposed to combine all the tools a librarian or clerk normally uses into one, convenient package.  Today, we would likely call the “eraser” a scraper.  I can’t see how the paper folder could be used without grasping the sharp edge of “C”, though the patent says all the functions can be used without interfering with the each other.

scissors

 

A close second is the combined paper knife (c), ink-eraser (a), rubber or pencil eraser (b), twine cutter (D), ruler (C), envelope opener (G), pen-knife (B), newspaper-wrapper opener (H) and hang hole (I). The patent notes the handle (C) can be made of ivory, bone, metal, wood or any other suitable material.

opener

 

Any images of other paper knives, or information on how they were used, or images of them in use would be greatly appreciated.