Following on from the last post I now block the title onto the front cover, using real gold foil and a magnesium photoengraved die, made for me by Owosso Graphic Art. The art work for this is the same hand-drawn lettering I used for the title-page, only a little smaller. I send the digital file (scanned to my computer from the drawing) and then mount the resulting die onto a block. The total height of block plus die is type-high.
The block is then locked into the chase, then the chase is heated on a stove, and put into the blocking press.
As you can see I use an old (antique even) Mackay blocking press. The modern equivalent of this is the Kwikprint, but the old press is much more versatile, there are two chases, the smaller one (shown) is the one I use the most, but the larger one can take very large dies.
This shows the title on the book. I will show fitting the ribbons and lining the flap in my next blog post.
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