Wednesday 2 July 2008

Magic Books From Mexico

Having put in the leather joints and in-filled the boards I can set about tooling.


The lines are first 'blinded in' with a hot brass tool, with the colour being added with a technical pen. Once the water proof ink has dried I re-apply the heated tool to set everything in place.


I tend to make my own tools as I can alter them to suit the individual book I am working on. In total, only three tools have been used, one being as small as 1 1/2mm (to go around tight corners) through to 7mm for the straight line work.


The sightly uneven line is important as it produces a less mechanical line. All to often I see tooling that is well done but somehow lacks grace and individuality. One can not help think that the crafts person is just using technique to show off with, the regimented lines, dots and centre tools being placed with anal attention, producing nothing more than gold wall paper with little or no relevance to the text block.


Detail showing the number of tool marks, thickness of line - tension etc

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