A peeling off of the color while the edges are being burnished is due to a lack of paste, or of a too great consistency or too insufficient fineness of the color.
Recently our industry has taken this article in hand and furnishes a large number of beautiful, cheap and well prepared colors for producing edges which can be bought more profitably than they can be laboriously made.
As all colored edges, to give a beautiful effect, must be burnished after coloring, it is advisable to execute the coloring while the books are in the press, place the books after their front edges have been cut, by the aid of gilding boards into the hand-press and with a soft brush apply the color thinly. If the color does not thoroughly cover on one application, the operation must be repeated after the first coat has completely dried. When a uniform color is obtained allow the edge to dry in the press and then burnish it well with a broad burnisher.
By using a little wax you will render the burnishing more successful.
The color will sometimes enter into unsized or wood paper notwithstanding heavy pressure.
To avoid this the edges must be moistened with a thin paste to which some alum is added. It is still better to use the grounding substance manufactured by William Leo, of Stuttgart.
If beautiful edges are to be produced, then, in cutting the book it is necessary to see that the knife of the machine is free from nicks, so that the cut is clean and smooth.
At the fore-edge of the book there will always appear some small parts of the different sheets protruding slightly. If this is to be overcome, these edges are to be treated as hollow edges which means that they must be scraped hollow before coloring and must be burnished with the round-burnisher.
The use of colored edges is always left to individual taste. The following rule may be of some advantage; colored edges must have a binding of an opposite color. A red edge will appear to most advantage with a white, gray, dull-green, dark-brown or antique binding.
Bindings of a reddish-brown color would lose in their general aspect by the employment of a red edge.