CHAPTER XIV

Decoration--Tools--Finishing--Tooling on
Vellum--Inlaying on Leather

DECORATION OF BINDING--TOOLS

The most usual, and perhaps the most characteristic, way of decorating
book covers is by "tooling." Tooling is the impression of heated
(finishing) tools. Finishing tools are stamps of metal that have a
device cut on the face, and are held in wooden handles (fig. 79).

[Illustration: FIG. 79.]

Tooling may either be blind tooling, that is, a simple impression of
the hot tools, or gold tooling, in which the impression of the tool is
left in gold on the leather.

Tools for blind tooling are best "die-sunk," that is, cut like a seal.
The "sunk" part of the face of the tool, which may be more or less
modelled, forms the pattern, and the higher part depresses the
leather to form a ground. In tools for gold tooling, the surface of
the tool gives the pattern.

Tools may be either complex or simple in design, that is to say, each
tool may form a complete design with enclosing border, as the lower
ones on page 323, or it may be only one element of a design, as at
fig. 100. Lines may be run with a fillet (see fig. 88), or made with
gouges or pallets.

Gouges are curved line tools. They are made in sets of arcs of
concentric circles (see fig. 80, A). The portion of the curves cut off
by the dotted line C will make a second set with flatter curves.
Gouges are used for tooling curved lines.

[Illustration: FIG. 80.]

A "pallet" may be described as a segment of a roll or fillet set in a
handle, and used chiefly for putting lines or other ornaments across
the backs of books (see fig. 81). A set of one-line pallets is shown
at fig. 80, B.

Fillets are cut with two or more lines on the edge. Although the use
of double-line fillets saves time, I have found that a few single-line
fillets with edges of different gauges are sufficient for running all
straight lines, and that the advantage of being able to alter the
distances between any parallel lines is ample compensation for the
extra trouble involved by their use. In addition to the rigid stamps,
an endless pattern for either blind or gold tooling may be engraved on
the circumference of a roll, and impressed on the leather by wheeling.

[Illustration: FIG. 81.]

The use of a roll in finishing dates from the end of the fifteenth
century, and some satisfa