ABSTRACT
The task of describing and illustrating any delicate and complicated manual process in popular articles has several distinct difficulties. No subject or process in book-binding is ever really finished in the sense of being put out of the way. A half binding is a book covered with a strip of leather at the back and, if to the taste of the binder, triangular pieces at the corners; the rest of the cover being of paper or cloth. In cutting a skin for full binding it is well first to cut a pattern of paper from the book in boards, laying the opened boards down on the paper and drawing lines at least three-quarters of an inch from the edge. The skin is pared around the edge just as in the process described for the top and bottom of the strip for half binding.
