Practical Bookbinding

by Paul Adam

The worker takes a board the required size, upon which he places the sheets when gathered; he begins at No. 1 pile, takes off the top sheet, being very careful not to take two, lays it upon the board, and so he goes the length of the table, taking the top sheet from each pile. He lays the pile of gathered sheets on the end of the table or another table standing behind. They are there received by another worker, knocked up, and folded in the middle. If only one worker can be spared for the job, the gathered sections are placed to one side, but each is laid crosswise over the other so that they are easily picked up afterwards for knocking up and folding. If the work has more than five or six sections, the separately gathered sections must be afterwards again gathered in the same manner. Perhaps there may be placed in the last section parts of a sheet—the title, addenda, corrigenda, frontispiece, diagrams, &c. The treatment of these will be dealt with presently (pp. 22-24).

Sheets so gathered must be afterwards opened out for folding in the bindery. The section is opened, the crease well pressed out, and the whole smoothed down quite flat, care being taken that all sheets lie the same way, the opened sections lying side by side according to the signatures.

Before the folded sheets are arranged or gathered, there is frequently still some pasting to be done. The title, for instance, is seldom printed with the first sheet, but is usually made up with the preface, contents, &c., after printing the last page, often as part of the last sheet.

On this account the last sheet must be examined before folding to see how it is composed. If it happens that the sheet is to be exactly halved, it is best to cut the sheet in the middle and fold each half separately. It is even worth while cutting the sheet into quarters if the sheets can be pinned on, because it is then possible to fold the cut sheets in lots of five or six and to draw out each one singly, as it is commonly called "pulling out."

This pulling out is very easy work; each folded batch is separately opened in the middle, fanned out with a paper folder so that each sheet stands back about 1/2-1 cm. behind the other, and the batch folded together again; it would then appear as in Fig. 6.

Fig. 6—Sections fanned out for drawing out.

Take the batch lightly between the finger and the thumb of the left hand, and with the right draw off the sheets from the top one by one, knock them up, and firmly press down the back fold.

Every part of a sheet which after folding makes less than four pages (equal to two leaves) must be pasted on. To do this the parts to be pasted are fanned out from the back with the pasting side uppermost, that is to say, the sheets are fanned out with the folder in the same way as described for "pulling out," until they lie like steps or stairs, each sheet displaying an edge of about 3 mm. In this manner all sheets so lie upon each other that each is about 3 mm. behind the one under it.

The narrow margin is pasted; to avoid pasting more than the proper margin of the top sheet, a piece of waste paper should be laid on top at the right distance from the edge. Each leaf has thus a narrow pasted edge by which it is secured to the main sheet. So that the pasted edges do not stick together whilst each sheet is being fixed in its place, which, of course, takes time, the batch is taken between the fingers immediately after pasting, and by a few light movements the sheets are worked a little further apart.