Fig. 86.
At first it will be found difficult to manage gold leaf. The essential conditions are, that there should be no draught, and that the cushion and knife should be quite free from grease. The gold cushion and knife are shown at [fig. 86]. A little powdered bath-brick rubbed into the cushion will make it easier to cut the gold cleanly. The blade of the gold knife should never be touched with the hand, and before using it, both sides should be rubbed on the cushion. A book of gold is laid open on the cushion, and a leaf of gold is lifted up on the gold knife, which is slipped under it, and turned over on to the cushion. A light breath exactly in the centre of the sheet should make it lie flat, when it may be cut into pieces of any size with a slightly sawing motion of the knife. The book with the pattern ready prepared, and the glaire sufficiently dry (not sticky), is rubbed lightly with a small piece of cotton-wool greased with a little cocoanut oil. The back of the hand is greased in the same way, and a pad of clean cotton-wool is held in the right hand, and having been made as flat as possible by being pressed on the table, is drawn over the back of the hand. This should make it just greasy enough to pick up the gold, but not too greasy to part with it readily when pressed on the book. As little grease as possible should be used on the book, as an excess is apt to stain the leather and to make the gold dull. After experiment it has been found that cocoanut oil stains the leather less than any other grease in common use by bookbinders, and is more readily washed out by benzine.
Fig. 87.
If the gold cracks, or is not solid when pressed on the book, a second thickness should be used. This will stay down if the under piece is lightly breathed upon.
For narrow strips of gold for lines, a little pad covered with soft leather may be made, as in [fig. 87].
It will be found of advantage to first use the bottom leaf of gold in the book and then to begin at the top and work through, or else the bottom leaf will almost certainly be found to be damaged by the time it is reached. The gold used should be as nearly pure as it can be got. The gold-beaters say that they are unable to beat pure gold as thin as is usual for gold leaf; but the quite pure gold is a better colour than when alloyed, and the additional thickness, although costly, results in a more solid impression of the tools.
The cost of a book of twenty-four leaves three and a half inches square of English gold leaf of good ordinary quality is from 1s. 3d. to 1s. 6d., whereas the cost of a book of double thick pure gold leaf is 3s. to 3s. 6d. For tooled work it is worth paying the increased price for the sake of the advantages in colour and solidity; but for lines and edges, which use up an immense amount of gold, the thinner and cheaper gold may quite well be used.