Printing

The diverse range of Alecto’s historical publications has resulted in the use of a number of printing techniques ­ from applying colour by hand to 18th-century copper plates for printing on manually driven rolling presses, to the most up to date digital printing.

Printing from original copper plates

When working from Joseph Banks’ engravings of plants, one of the finest surviving collections of 18th-century copper plates, Alecto used the ‘à la poupée’ technique developed by a Dutch artist in the 17th Century. The process involves applying all the colours required direct to the plate which is then passed through the press to achieve the finished result in a single impression. The elaborate colour inking of the plate, which on a large subject might take as much as an hour, has to be repeated for every impression. This is a slow and laborious process, but besides the advantage of avoiding the problems associated with accurate register of sequential colour printing from separate plates, colour in the line of the engraving is far more effective than an overlaid wash. Small touches of hand colouring may later be added ­ particularly in areas of white or pale yellow.

Facsimile printing or reproducing an original artwork

Origination

First the most appropriate photographic process must be selected. In the case of Domesday Book, it was photographed at actual size from the unbound parchment sheets in the Public Record Office in 1985. This was a three-month operation in a temperature controlled security cage using a Littlejohn 24D camera. The Film was Kodak Contone Separation Type 2, Kodak Ultratone Line and Kodak Gravure Positive Continuous tone.

Today, even with the quality of modern digital photographic equipment it is still common to photograph a manuscript or drawing using a traditional large-format camera and colour separation film. Some craftsmen still prefer the results achieved from digitally scanned colour transparencies.

Printing

Alecto’s recent facsimile editions of Little Domesday Book and Mark Catesby’s Natural History of North America have been printed by stochastic lithography. This process represents a completely new advance in printing technology. Unlike conventional lithographic origination which employs the mechanical cross-line screen and the equal spacing of variously-sized half-tone dots, computer-controlled stochastic, or frequency modulated screening, delivers a random effect from microdots of a common size whose distribution varies according to tonal value.

Paper

Many factors are considered when selecting a paper for a publication. It should have the look and feel of the original but it must also be suitable for the type of printing that is being employed. Paper used for an important publication must now be of a substance weighing at least 175 grammes per square metre, with good ink ‘hold-out’ to prevent any increase in dot size; it must be acid-free and of archival quality. Alecto uses papers from several specialist mills in Europe and North America.

Binding

Just as there are many ways of printing a publication there are many ways of binding it in different styles and materials. Among the factors that come into account are strength and durability but a binding must complement the pages it contains. There is no substitute for the skills of craft binding and the following photographs illustrate some of the processes involved in making a hand-sewn, one-off leather covered book.

Folding

Each sheet of a facsimile is folded by placing it flat on a table and making a central crease with a bone folder. The folios are then assembled into gatherings.

Sewing

The gatherings are taken one by one and placed on the sewing frame where, for extra strength, they are sewn with thread around each of the hemp cords. The gatherings are secured one to another by the ‘kettle stitch’ (similar to a chain stitch), which is formed at the head and tail of the book by looping the thread around the previous stitch.

Backing

The sewn gatherings are then placed between the backing boards in the lying press. Gentle blows with a specially-shaped hammer are directed at the backs of the sections to make them splay out over the backing boards. When the book is removed from the press a projecting shoulder running the length of it will remain which is exactly the height of the oak boards and will accommodate them comfortably.

Preparing the ‘slips’

Before the boards can be attached the hemp cords have to be turned into ‘slips by separating the fibres. They are then scraped with the edge of a knife to soften them so that they will not form an ugly lump beneath the leather.

Attaching the boards

The boars are securely attached to the book by passing the pasted slips through holes drilled in the boards.

Covering

Finally, after careful paring of the leather to remove any unwanted thickness, the selected skin is pasted in preparation for application to the spine. Foredge down, the book is again put in the lying press to hold it from leaving the binder with both hands free, and t he pasted leather is deftly worked over the back with the fingers aided by a bone folding-tool.