#cold tooling

I drew and re-drew the designs, copied them to size, did rough cut outs to arrange on the case and traced them through sketching paper. Which in return was fixed to the inside of the case so it would not shift while I was tracing and became my guide for tooling.

It took me several passes with different tools to get a nice imprint, but it was still not very distinct.

So finally I moistened the leather slightly and broke out a foil pen thing to go over the pattern with heat.

Last step was colouring the case, I did one copy first just in case it looks terrible, then there would still be a 'good' copy to send out to my typesetter.

For colouring I used a fine brush and gouache water colour and mixed it with methylcellulose to make the colours stick without smudging. Does it work? Well, for now it does. I haven't carried it around, but it withstood reading, I guess that's good enough. Was it necessary to add some glue to the paint? Who knows? I used watercolours once and they were kind of easy to brush off once they'd dried. So it felt like a good idea to prevent that by adding some methylcellulose glue.

First step was sanding down the edge until it was really smooth.  I still had a small dent from putting the inner book into the press though. I worked it out almost completely....  or so I thought. There was only a small dull patch close to the foreedge. I knew I should have kept sanding, you’ll see why later.

Also now is the time of temptation! The surface looks so smooth (and it really is, I touched it before to check for dull areas so I know!) but now this has to stop, because the oil film on the skin can be enough to keep a water based colour or glue from covering the paper evenly and that might be visible in the end and lead to a mottled result.

After sanding I prepared my materials for the graphite edge. Mostly that’s watered down paste glue, watered down paste glue with graphite powder, brushes and some soft fabric that won’t give off any fluff. I use an old shirt filled with a wad of cotton and keep it stretched tightly as to avoid folds that might ruin the result.

The raw edge got sealed with the thin paste glue and polished lightly with a cotton wad after letting it dry for a short moment then. This already gives it a gentle sheen and you could even polish it to a nice gloss. More importantly though, the paper is now primed for the graphite and the glue prevents too much moisture or colour from sinking too deep into the paper. The book here has a rather voluminous paper that would soak up plenty of moisture if not for the pressure and the priming with paste glue.

Next step is applying the paste glue mixed with graphite. This doesn’t have to be overly neat, but if the foredge is not treated as well (in this case it isn’t, because that’s always the edge I start with then). I let it dry for a couple of seconds until it just doesn’t look wet anymore and start polishing. This step is always the most wonderous for me, because one second it doesn’t look like it’s going to work at all and the next you can see how the graphite takes hold and starts to colour the edge.

Also, it’s really just a matter of determination. You polish and polish and eventually it looks somewhat like this (if it doesn’t you can try another layer of graphite glue or sand it down a bit to start over, again, it doesn’t have to be completely clean). It took me two takes to get here because I slipped and had an ugly streak in the first go. 

I talked about this mirror sheen I wanted though, the one you see on the right in the top photo. For that I had to polish some more, this time I used my bone folder. While I don’t want it to leave polished streaks on paper or fabric I thought this is exactly where I want that.

This picture is not taken with flash. It’s just the lamp hanging over my working space, that wasn’t notable on the edge before. You can see clearly the dull streak from where the paper wasn’t sanded smooth enough.

This pic actually uses a flash though

Here too, you can see what I meant. The glossy mirror effect is not visible on the whole edge, Just about half of it. The dull area I pointed out in the beginning, where I stopped sanding and hoped it would work out. This is where it shows so I did the natural thing, I tried to distract from it and tried something else I never did before.  Embossing the edge. Which is quite easy actually. I checked the pressure needed on the paper beside my book. So that’s been my experiment with mirror sheen and cold tooling the edge.

And then there’s this moment. The satisfying crack a coloured edge makes upon first opening. Like the sound you get when stepping first on an air bubble caught in a frozen puddle. It’s the moment of truth, the moment when you see whether or not the colour was applied too thick and flakes off, the paste glue to sticky, holding the pages together and damaging them by opening the book or if it was all just right.