Provided the heraldry identifies the owner, it should be as simply drawn as it can be; the custom of indicating the tinctures by lines and dots on the charges, generally makes a design confused, obscuring the coat it is intended to make clear. In designing heraldic blocks it is well to get a good deal of solid flat surface of gold to make the blocked design stand out from any gold-tooled work on the cover.
Another way of putting armorial bearings on covers, is to paint them in oil paint. In the early sixteenth century the Venetians copied the Eastern custom of sinking panels in their book covers, and painted coats of arms on these sunk portions very successfully. The groundwork of the shield itself was usually raised a little, either by something under the leather, or by some gesso-like substance on its surface.
Arms blocks should be placed a little above the centre of the cover. Generally, if the centre of the block is in a line with the centre band of a book with five bands, it will look right.
Blocks are struck with the aid of an arming or blocking press. The block is attached to the movable plate of the press called the “platen.” To do this some stout brown paper is first glued to the platen, and the block glued to this, and the platen fixed in its place at the bottom of the heating-box. In blocking arms on a number of books of different sizes, some nice adjustment of the movable bed is needed to get the blocks to fall in exactly the right place.
For blocking, one coat of glaire will be enough for most leathers. The gold is laid on as for hand tooling. The block should be brought down and up again fairly sharply. The heat needed is about the same as for hand tooling.
CHAPTER XVI
Designing for Gold-Tooled Decoration
DESIGNING TOOLS
For gold tooling, such tools as gouges, dots, pieces of straight line, and fillets are to be had ready-made at most dealers. Other tools are best designed and cut to order. At first only a few simple forms will be needed, such as one or two flowers of different sizes, and one or two sets of leaves (see [fig. 100]).