Blind Tooling: A quick tutorial

Recently, a friend of mine asked me to show him how I do my blind tooling on my books. I figured I may as well write something up about it so others can learn, too.

Let me start by saying that I am still relatively new to blind tooling. I picked up a few brass tools at an auction, bought a few from a guy in Hungary, and ordered a handful of lengths of brass in various shapes. I know the principal, and I can make shapes on leather books. I'm still trying to work through how to use the different shapes to create extraordinary artwork. But I'm learning every time I use the tools.

Tools I use:

• Brass stamps
• They must be brass because they will be heated and brass conducts heat in the bet way for this process.
• Some of mine have wooden handles; some do not. I regularly burn myself on the ones without wooden handles. Do with that information what you will.
• Heat source
• I use a single burner hot plate because I can have some control over the amount of heat I'm using.
• Historically, the binder would have used a small brazier to heat the stamps.
• Complete leather-bound book
• The book should be completely done and the leather damp through but not soaking.
• If you try to blind tool the leather before it goes on the book, your designs will end up distorted and not inline with where you want them. Trust me on this.
• Oh, and the leather should be completely dyed before you put it on the book, but DON'T put the finishing wax on yet. That will impede the stamps.
• Scrap leather
• This is to test the leather before putting it directly to the book. Once you touch a hot stamp to damp leather, it will leave a mark. Make sure you know what that mark will look like before you do.
• Water and sponge
• The book should be damp, but not soaking. As it dries, you'll need to rewet it with the sponge.
• Metal 12" ruler
• This will be used to make sure that any lines of smaller stamps are straight. You can use a wooden ruler, but it's probably going to get scorched.
• Awl
• You're going to want to be careful with this because anything you mark on the cover is going to stay there. But I use it to put small dots to help me guide where I put the ruler to make lines of stamps.
• Design
• Seriously, have a rough idea of what you want on the book cover before you start. It doesn't have to be a detailed drawing, but at least know what stamps you're using, how, and where.

For this, I used just a wooden board with veg-tanned leather wrapped around it, much like it would be were it already a book. The "cover" was for practice and to show a few things. 

First things first, turn the heat source on and place your brass tools on/in it. While they're heating, run a sponge over the cover to make sure that it's damp. If you push a finger into it and water comes out, it's too wet. Let it dry a little before you use the stamps on it. 

Once the stamps are hot, try them on your scrap leather. The stamp should hiss a little when it touches the leather. Rock the stamp from side to side and back to front without lifting it to make sure the entire stamp touches the leather. 

Following your design, start with any straight lines you're using to frame the cover. I always start with the long, straight lines because that will help guide the rest. If it's not straight, you'll want to adjust the rest of your design to give the appearance of being straight even though it's not. Optical illusions are your friends here. After that, use your smaller line stamps to make all of the rest of the straight lines in your design.

After the long, frame lines, I will put in the lines of designs. For this, I will abut the same design, or alternate different stamps. Line the ruler up with the frame and hold it tightly. Put the stamp bottom against the edge of the ruler and rock it down onto the leather. If you're using the same stamp again, you can probably get a few impressions before it needs to be heated again. If you're alternating, you won't get quite as many as they will cool in between stamping.

And finally, put the decorative stamping that isn't aligned specifically with anything else, like finials in the corners. The ruler can help with this, too. 

Now time to flip the book over and do the back. For this, as I just used a single block so there isn't a back. In period, the back and front rarely looked the same, but by the Tudor period, binders used full plates instead of individual tools so the front and back are more likely to be the same.

This is when I add my mark on the inside back cover, a badger paw print. 

Once you're done stamping, let the leather dry completely, then put your leather wax on the whole book, pushing it into the imprinted designs, then buff it off with a soft cloth. When you buff, be very gentle on the stamping. For the most part, you won't be able to do any damage to them, but there's no reason to take a chance. Once the book is waxed, stamping won't work so you can't fix anything that gets flattened in the buffing.

A few things to think about

Leather dye stains. They stain your hands, your clothes, and your stamping tools. Make sure that you clean your stamps after every book. You do not want partially red stamps on your newly dyed blue book. Soap and water works for this, then rinse and rub with a soft cloth to make sure all of the dye is off. 

These stamps will be hot. Remember the slight hiss? Have a hot pad or thick work gloves nearby in case you drop a stamp or need to rearrange them while hot. They will also cause what's called a "shadow" if you lift the stamp and try to put it back down. The likelihood of it being exactly in the same place is pretty slim. I'm not saying don't redo a stamp that didn't turn out. I'm just saying that this is probably going to happen when you do it.

And finally, medieval books were not perfect. Of the hundreds of blind tooled covers I've seen, roughly half of them have a mistake or four on them. Your book isn't ruined if your lines aren't perfectly straight or you have a shadow or two. Of course we want to make it as perfect as we can, but don't beat yourself up if it's not. Those little mistakes are what makes the book special as a handmade piece of art.