These are brief notes about methods I've investigated for
putting titles on books. Some of them have great promise,
others are costly, stupid, or ineffective.
Ars longa, vite brevis, tempus fugit.
The gold lettering you see on old leather books is made with heated metal type pressed down onto real leaf. The gold sticks to the prepared surface. The pressure and heat cause the lettering to be embossed into the surface. The results are attractive and durable. All artisan bookbinders use this method.
The most inexpensive way to work with hot stamping is also the most difficult: Small hand-held branding irons with one letter per iron are heated on a stove and then pressed by hand into the gold-covered leather. Because all the variables are controlled by feel and experience, it takes lots of practice to perfect this method. The expression "inexpensive" is relative: A set of new brass hand letters in one size run $500-$700, depending on the size.
The leather must be treated to make the gold stick: The spine or cover is prepared by applying a thin eqg wash called glare. Then real gold leaf is laid over the area to be lettered and the small irons are applied one at a time. The temperature of the hot irons (actually brass) is moderate: around 200F.
A refinement that makes this process easier and faster is to use loose type set in a heated type holder called a chase. This insures that the letters are lined up. The whole chase is heated and appled to the surface by hand. Much practice is still required to get the temperature right and apply unform pressure.
A big drawback of this method is that a new kit of tools is very expensive and it is very easy to make ugly mistakes. Some nervous bookbinders apply the hot stamping to a thin strip of matching or contrasting leather and glue this to the finished book.
If you want to look into hot stamping further, almost every bookbinding text covers this method in detail. There is a short bibliography on my bookbinding page.
One source of supplies for traditional gold lettering is Fine Cut Graphic Imaging.
This method is used for most of the gold titles you see on cloth or leather bound books commercially printed. It's also taught in nearly all bookbinding schools.
Hot type is set in a chase that is mounted in a press that also heats the type to a controlled temperature. Gold leaf is replaced by very inexpensive gold foil - a lifetime supply for most hobby bookbinders runs about $40. It looks like gold with a mylar backing. When heated metal type is stamped down on this stuff, the backing melts and adheres to the surface. You peal away the mylar carrier and a nice gold title is left on the surface. The pressure and heat also emboss the letters so they look like traditional hand stamping.
Small hot stamping presses come up all the time on eBay. I bought one called a Kingsley, which is probably the least expensive because the company went out of business and you're on hour own if it breaks.
Temperature control and alignment are insured by this method. The only variables are the pressure you exert on the lever and the duration of the stamp. Technique with the lever takes practice and different materials require different strokes. It's somewhat fussy, but not nearly as difficult as using a gas stove with handle letters.
A whole outfit with one or two unattractive and mis-sized fonts runs about $500 on eBay.
The biggest drawback of hot stamping is the the type: Most of the type faces sold with used machines on eBay appear to be designed by typographers driven mad by heavy metal vapors.
Soft metal type
The best type for hot foil stamping is cut from brass or even steel. It is extremely expensive and I've seldom seen it put up for sale used.
Next best is soft metal type, usually zinc or some combination of lead, tin, zinc and antimony. This material looks like linotype metal, but the kind sold for hot stamping has a somewhat higher melting point.
A new set of capital letters in one size runs about $200. As hinted above, inexpensive used type comes up all the time on eBay and it looks pretty good if your book is about psychedelic drugs or plastic flower arranging.
If you're careful not to overheat it, printers type can be used in these machines. It tends to be too soft and is not cast with deep enough relief to make clear lettering on soft materials.
If you're making several identical books, you can cheat and order precast linotype or monotype titles. These are produced to order by people who own and operate the big hulking hot type machines. You get a one-piece metal bar with your line of lettering cast in relief. A single line of type can by purchased for about $20.
If you have a great deal of well-ventillated industrial space, you can buy a linotype or monocasting machine for surprisingly little money. Many of these machines are given away free to anyone willing to haul them away. You still have to track down the molds (called "matricies") for casting the fonts you like. But printers tend to be more conservative than hot stampers, so there are many attractive fonts available. Several usually come with the 4 ton semitrailer full of equipment you'll need to set up your new machine.
Photopolymer plates
This is a relatively new technology developed for the letterpress trade. The idea is to harden liquid plastic confined in a shallow tray using a negative mask. When washed out, you have an image in relief that can be inked and printed in a letterpress or used like a linoleum block for printing with a roller. This could be used to print one of the heat activated adhesives made for foil printing on T-shirts.
Recently, heat resistant photopolymers have been developed that can be used directly in a hot stamping press. This is a great idea: you get the permanence of hot stamping and the freedom to originate art on the computer.
The biggest expense appears to be the U.V. light source required to expose the plates. This can probably be improvised. And you have to have a hot stamping press.
Jackson Marking Products sells polymers, light boxes, and dryers to help you create hot stamping plates. Unfortunately, the tools are priced beyond my means. The photopolymer goop itself is not expensive, and it might be straightforward to expose and dry the plates with improvised equipment.
A search of YouTube uncovers many inexpensive, if less controlled, ways to get started with photopolymer plates.. I think this idea merits further study...
Photopolymer rubber stamps
People who make rubber stamps also use photopolymer methods and they seem to operate on a less expense scale. The Granthams web site describes how to make a stamp making machine for less than $100. They also sell photopolymer chemicals in small amounts. I think this would be very interesting to try. Rubber stamps are too soft for direct use in the hot stamping press, but they could be used to transfer adhesive for foil. It also might be possible to use their inexpensive plate maker with the special photopolymers designed for hot stamping.
Line casting with photopolyer lost wax patterns
This sounds like an absurd amount of work, but the Granthams site cited in the previous section makes it seem almost reasonable. Especially if you have some other need for making small metal parts.
The idea is to use photopolymer methods to create a lost wax mold. This is used to pour a hot metal casting that has your text in relief just like a linotype. You can vacuum cast brass using this method, so you'd end up with pretty high quality hot stamping dies. An insanely determined individual could create one or more sets of brass stamping type using this method.
I didn't add it all up, but this would set you back at least $2000 even if you bought everything used on eBay. The advantage would be having the equipment to make metal parts with 2D cross sections from anything you can draw on the computer.
Photopolymer sheets
These are semi-solid sheets which are much easier to handle than the liquid. After exposure, the masked-out areas can be washed away using a brush, leaving the exposed areas in relief.
Artists have picked up on this method and the materials are available in small quantities. It is stated that the UV exposure can be done with a halogen bulb. Drying is done with a regular hot air gun.
Cast clay type
Art Clay World sells photopolymer sheets to make molds for their metal-filled clay products. They also sell the UV light bulb you need to expose a plate. After making the plate, you pack it with the metal filled clay. When fired in a kiln or even using a gas stove, the binders in the clay burn off leaving pure silver. It would be very interesting to try this method for creating lines of type. The only drawback I see right away is that it shrinks 10% when fired.
I haven't tried this method, but it appears to create very durable results. The patterns come from anything you can draw on the computer. The resulting stamps can tolerate very high temperature and could be used in an inexpensive hot foil stamping press.
Because the process was developed for jewelry makers, the available metal-filled clay is silver or gold and consequently expensive. It would be nice to have clay made with inexpensive metal filler. Something like powdered stainless steel would good for making stamps.
Screen printing is an ancient craft. A sheet of finely woven cloth, traditionally silk, is stretched in an open frame. Various methods are used to paint a negative image on the screen, blocking out the areas you don't want printed. The screen is pressed down on the surface to be printed and viscous ink is scraped across the screen with a hard rubber squeegee. The ink is forced though the open parts of the screen and magically doesn't (usually) run under the screen to other areas.
Screen printing technology has advanced to remarkable heights: Full color photos can be printed from multiple half tone separations. This method can be used to print very large photos or entire bolts of designer fabric.
In recent decades, T-shirt printing has become a large industry and equipment to service this trade is available for very low prices. The specialized screen printing inks and metallic foils used to decorate T-shirts work well on cloth book covers. The only limitation is that the cloth must be reasonably smooth.
Commercial screen printing is done with solvent based inks that have toxic fumes and require even more toxic solvents to clean up the mess. But several companies now sell inks that can be washed out with water in your kitchen sink. When the ink dries, it is waterproof.
When using the computer to create a screen, a negative image is laser printed on plastic transparency sheets. Inkjet printers can also be used, but special ink is required to get sufficient opacity.
The screen is prepared by coating with a light sensitive emulsion. Once this coating dries, it must be stored in a dark place.
To make a screen, the negative image is place over the screen and held firmly in place by a glass sheet. The package is exposed to light for a prescribed time, which will harden the exposed areas of the emulsion. The screen is then washed out with water, clearing away the unhardened areas.
I found a company, Circuit Bridge that sells complete kits for making small screens using an entirely water based process. The screens are semi rigid and don't require frames. A small kit sells for $20. They have several versions of the technology and it was hard for me to choose between them. I ended up getting the "StencilPro" version and used it to make several screens for book titles.
I won't illustrate the process in detail, but here is one sample I printed with regular undiluted artist's water color straight from the tube. The process works better with special screen printing ink.
PHOTO TBD
I also tried printing with special heat-activated glue. The idea is to dry the glue image and then stamp gold foil over it with a hot press (I used a clothes iron.) The glue activates and binds the foil. When the backing is pealed off, you have your gold letters. This process is used in the commercial t-shirt business for printing metallic foils. Done properly, the graphics will survive machine washing.
This process has great potential, but I had trouble getting crisp small lettering on commercial bookbinding cloth. The cloth was a little too coarse for the ink I was using. The more uneven the surface, the thicker the ink must be. Every project requires experimenting with ink and the weave pitch of the screen itself. This is a lot of fussing, but if you were printing a small edition of your book, it would be a reasonable effort.
This process involves using an ordinary laser printer. The trick is to get the toner off the paper and stuck firmly onto the book. After that, gold must be attached to the toner. There are several ways to do this trick. I think I have tried all of them. All toner transfer methods depend on using a special coated paper in the laser printer. The coating prevents the toner from sticking permanently to the paper.
Lasertrans decals
This is a process promoted by Lasertrans. They sell several varieties of decal paper optimized for laser printers or ink jet printers. ... More to be done ...
Direct toner transfer
There are several products developed for the t-shirt makers that let you iron the printed (special) paper right onto the cloth. The toner leaves the paper and adheres to cloth. You're still faced with the uncertain process of getting the foil onto the toner, but this process is used in the commercial production of t-shirts, so I suspect it can be made to work well. It is the best method I know about as far as reducing the number of steps involved. I have not sufficiently explored it, but I'd like to hear from others who have.
Indirect toner transfer
This method involves attaching gold foil to the toner while it's still on the coated paper. Then you transfer the toner plus gold to an intermediate sheet of thin mylar. This gets the letters turned over so the toner is exposed. The mylar sheet is then hot pressed onto the fabric.
In the process documented by Pulsar, adhesives are used to stick the text or art onto any smooth surface. This works well for making circuit board masks or decorating perfectly smooth and impervious surfaces. For cloth or other surfaces thin enough to pass through the laminator, the adhesive is unnecessary. The heat bonds the toner directly to the surface.
An advantage of this process is that the gold is usually perfectly attached to the toner and only sticks where it belongs. The letters are crisp and perfect. The biggest drawback is getting the letters permanently attached to the target surface: toner by itself is not a very strong bond on materials like bookbinding cloth.
To overcome this limitation, I've tried several coatings applied over text after it is bonded to the cloth. Printers use various kinds of varnish to create contrasting effects on paper or cloth book covers. I used a satin water-based varnish. This protects the whole book cover and looks good over most fabrics. It is also possible to mask off the title area and varnish only that area. This looks good when the tile has a gold border. A similar effect is seen on commercial cloth covers where the gold titles appear to be hot stamped onto a rectangular area coated with a contrasting colored paint or varnish.
Of all the methods I've tried, this one has so far produced the best results. It does involve quite a few fussy steps. But after sufficient practice, the results are predictable and reasonably durable.
Even with a varnish coating, the letters are still flush with the surface of the book. For titles applied to the cover, this is especially a problem because the book slides between other books on the shelf and this constant wear will eventually attack the lettering. To prevent this, the title area can be embossed down into the cover boards by placing a thin rectangular cardboard patch over the tile and pressing tightly in the nipping press. This sinks the title area below the surface. It looks especially nice when a gold border surrounds the text.
It's hard to protect the letters on the spine of a small book by embossing because there's no room for the rectangular border. But I've found in this case that using an extra coat of varnish all along the spine doesn't show so much as a stain because the right angle the spine makes with the covers creates a contrasting surface.
The Pulsar website documents this process in great detail along with online videos. If you decide to use this process, I suggest you watch these carefully. Pulsar sells complete kits with everything you need for a modest price. The kits come with a large assortment of colored foils and samples to practice the transfers.
Another advantage of the Pulsar method is that it works with color laser printers. So you can create a full color graphic for your cover, including selectively foiled areas and transfer all the colored areas to your cloth cover.
I haven't yet explored using the Pulsar method with leather. I expect applying heat to the whole surface in a laminator would not work well: Leather holds moisture and it is nearly impossible to dry it out without damaging the surface. I have tried other toner transfer methods with leather and heat and the results were disappointing. The adhesive method documented on the Pulsar site could be used with leather. The problem with this is poor adhesion of the graphic. Some sort of supplemental coating or substrate would have to be applied to the leather to make the results permanent. One possibility to explore would be the use of egg glare, the traditional adhesive for gold leaf stamping.
Printing T-Shirts with computer-generated art and without using silk screens has taken off in a big way and there are many alternative methods. Some use ink-jet printers, others use laser printing. The end result is that durable full-color art gets transfered to the cloth surface.
I got an evaluation kit with three different processes. All involve using two intermediate transfers with special paper. I don't yet know how metal foils can be attached using these methods. More results will be reported here soon...
If you want to investigate these methods yourself, you can see many demonstrations on YouTube. Search for "toner transfer" or "ink jet printing t-shirts", etc.
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