Hymn Book - Debossing the cover

From the start I always envisaged that the cover of my book would be embossed, so that it looks like a proper old hymn book. I had some off-cuts of perspex left from the Bath Uni project, so I took them down to the plastics workshop to get them laser etched, in the hope that I would end up with a debossing template to use in letterpress. Unfortunately, the end result was not usable:



The problem is that the laser is great for cutting or etching small areas, which would be fine if I was embossing the cover, whereby the text stands proud. But I wanted it debossed, so the letters are pressed into the cover, which meant that the laser had to etch away the majority of the perspex. It's not really designed to do that sort of thing, so there ended up being deep lines all over what should have been a smooth surface. Obviously these lines would also be pressed into the cover so that simply would not do. Besides, the sheer heat had caused the plate to warp too.

So, Plan B... I went and spoke to Penny in the print room and she said that the plate could be photo-etched. This was something I had not tried before and it sounded a bit like witchcraft - it's sort of like screenprinting but you end up with a metal plate that is suitable for putting through a press. I prepared the artwork onto Folex and gave it to Jane, the print technician. She exposed the artwork onto the plate:



The plate is then placed into a bath of water at exactly 25 degrees Celsius and scrubbed with a toothbrush to get rid of all the stuff that was not masked off by the artwork. Jane told me that you had to be careful not to scrub too hard or your image would also be removed, so I approached the task with extreme caution. After a while I looked at the plate and I had been too gentle, so most of the excess material was still intact. I went at it again with added vigour only to destroy some of the text!



Again, this seems to be a problem with debossing - when you take away the majority of the material, the small amount that is left is incredibly fragile. My only other viable option is to send away to get the plate made professionally. This would cost me at least £30 and I doubt it would get here prior to hand-in on May 14th, so it looks like I will have to screenprint it instead. It's a real shame but perhaps I can have another go at it after the deadline, for my portfolio. The other thing I want to try is spraying the page edges gold. Kate Holland said it was possible, providing I brushed talcum powder between all the pages first to stop them from sticking. This is not a risk I am willing to take so close to hand-in.

Hymn Book - Binding

Due to careful project management, I was able to have everything ready for a bookbinding workshop at Dartmouth Avenue. I wasn't too confident with the process, I had only done a blank sketchbook before, so I figured I would really benefit from the advice of a professional. Kate Holland gave us a lecture the day before the workshop and it was clear that she was the right person to help me get my book bound to a high standard.

With her expert guidance, I made holes in each of my sections and set to work on the sewing. It actually went really well; I took my time and made sure that I pulled the thread good and tight at the end of every section. Once all the sections were in place I placed the book block under a heavy weight and applied PVA glue liberally to the spine:



After the glue had dried, Kate and I went over and trimmed the excess on the guillotine. The edge wasn't perfect, due to the bulge at the spine because I had so many sections and therefore so much thread. I will have to sand this down in woodworking at some point to get it really flat and smooth. For now it was time to get on with the hardback cover. I selected a nice green bookbinding cloth and trimmed some board down to the exact proportions of my book block and spine. The pieces of board were then glued onto the back of the cloth and the edges were creased and folded over, glued neatly in place and rubbed down with a bone folder. I made two covers and have the knowledge and materials to make more, just in case anything goes wrong with the printing.

Hymn Book - Getting it printed

I went and spoke to Steve about getting my book printed. It weighed in at a pretty hefty 208 pages, including contents etc, so I made sure I gave him plenty of lead time. Turns out he can only print double-sided four-page sections, which seems a bit daft as that is only a single page, so I was going to have problems getting the imposition right. I worked around this by exporting each 16-page section as a separate pdf, so that I had total control.

As it is such a small book I was able to get two copies printed for pretty much the price of one, which is handy in case anything goes wrong with the binding. I trimmed the spreads slightly, leaving plenty of bleed so I could guillotine it after binding, then carefully folded them all and put the sections into order.