A very good effect may be produced by first colouring the edge yellow, and when dry, after throwing on rice, seeds, pieces of thread, fern leaves, or anything else according to fancy, then sprinkling with some other dark colour. For this class of work body sprinkling colour should always be used. It may be varied in many different ways.
Marbled Edges.—The edges of marbled books should in almost every instance correspond with their marbled ends.
In London very few binders marble their own work, but send it out of the house to the Marblers, who do nothing else but make marbled edges and paper. One cannot do better than send one’s books to be marbled; it will cost only a few pence, which will be well spent in avoiding the trouble and dirt that marbling occasions; nevertheless I will endeavour to explain; it is, however, a process that may seem very easy, but is very difficult to execute properly.
The requisites are a long square wooden or zinc trough about 2 inches deep to hold the size for the colours to float on; the dimensions to be regulated by the work to be done. About 16 to 20 inches long and 6 to 8 inches wide will probably be large enough. Various colours are used, such as lake, rose, vermilion, king’s yellow, yellow ochre, |70| Prussian blue, indigo, some green, flake white, and lamp black. The brushes for the various colours should be of moderate size, and each pot of colour must have its own brush. Small stone jars are convenient for the colours, and a slab of marble and muller to grind them must be provided. The combs may be made with pieces of brass wire about two inches long, inserted into a piece of wood; several of these will be required with the teeth at different distances, according to the width of the pattern required to be produced. Several different sized burnishers, flat and round, will be required for giving a gloss to the work.
Marbling Trough.
The first process in marbling is the preparation of the size on which the colours are to be floated. This is a solution of gum tragacanth, or as it is commonly called, gum dragon. If the gum is placed over night in the quantity of water necessary it will generally be found dissolved by the morning. The quantity of gum necessary to give proper consistency to the size is simply to be learned by experience, and cannot be described; and the solution must always be filtered through muslin or a linen cloth before use.
The colours must be ground on the marble slab with a little water, as fine as possible; move the colour from time to time into the centre of the marble with a palette knife, and as the water evaporates add a little more. About one oz. of colour will suffice to grind at once, and it will take about two hours to do it properly.
Having everything at hand and ready, with the size in |71| the trough, and water near, the top of the size is to be carefully taken off with a piece of wood the exact width of the trough, and the colour being well mixed with water and a few drops of ox gall, a little is taken in the brush, and a few very fine spots are thrown on.
If the colour does not spread out, but rather sinks down, a few more drops of gall must be carefully added and well mixed up. The top of the size must be taken off as before described, and the colour again thrown on.