



Produced by Walt Farrell, fh and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net







    Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents is located at the back
    of the book on page 139.


       *       *       *       *       *




  THE PROGRESS
  OF THE MARBLING ART

  FROM
  TECHNICAL SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES

  BY JOSEF HALFER

  WITH A SUPPLEMENT ON THE
  DECORATION OF BOOK EDGES


  Translated by Herman Dieck, Philadelphia


  BUFFALO, N. Y.:
  THE AMERICAN BOOKBINDER CO.
  1894.




  Copyright, 1893,
  By LOUIS H. KINDER.




PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION.


No product finds so many and ample applications as color. Nearly every
trade requires it for the decoration of its products so as to adapt them
more generally and pleasantly to the present demands.

The art of marbling is that branch of our trade, in which color is
brought into use for the decoration of bindings, yet it has not found
the desirable general introduction into our book-binderies because
practical men have not so intently employed their time and endeavors, to
overcome the difficulties, which resist its general application.

Who could solve easier and more correctly than the mechanics, to whom
these difficulties and obstacles offer themselves in practice? He is the
only one to find the remedy, scientific men not possessing sufficient
technical knowledge. Only he is ready and able to stand up for such
special trades, to work and to fight for them, who is himself interested
and who not only learned to understand the art of marbling from former
instructions and traditions, but from his own practical experience.

To him only, will it be possible to gain by close study true points, on
which to further develop the whole subject.

My original plan was, not only to remove the technical difficulties of
the art of marbling, but also to ascertain the correct colors from the
mass at present manufactured, for the purpose of manufacturing marbling
colors.

But in this I did not succeed as easily as I expected. Every color
manufactory possesses another system to produce its products, and after
thousands of experiments I was finally forced to resort to chemistry for
the purpose of gaining a knowledge of the raw products viz: earths,
metals, acids, bases and their conditions and qualities in order to
study their compositions and precipitations, the coloring composite of
lake colors and their bodies, and to subject them to investigation on
their effects on marbling size.

This was a tiresome work which demanded much patience and pertinacity.
During these investigations, I have learned to know the influence of
sizing upon colors and how it hindered or expedited a beautiful marbling
or comb edging.

Through these experiments I unexpectedly gained a certain knowledge
which enabled me to overcome the technical difficulties of the marbling
art. The greater the difficulties the more they aroused my zeal to
surmount them and the greater my joy when victory was won. During my
investigations I saw, that not the color itself, but its body, to which
the color is bound either in a natural or chemical way, forms the
important part of the colors necessary to our purpose. No branch puts so
many critical demands upon the preparation of colors as the art of
marbling, because, aside from the most careful grating which can only be
done by using the best of painter's colors, there must be a great power
of divisibility and excellent covering qualities so that the pigments do
not turn pale by the propelling power of the ox-gall expanding on the
size, but retain in a dry state, their full lustre. It is therefore
impossible without a more thorough knowledge of the chemistry of colors
to find from the legion of colors, which are thrown upon the market, the
ones best adapted to our art. So much more so as, in most recent times,
by simplification in the manufacture of most colors their quality, for
marbling, has most essentially deteriorated.

Colors which are used for painting, lithography and printing with the
greatest success may be entirely unfit for marbling. The cause is not to
be found in their preparation for our purposes, but in the manufacture
itself, as the qualities, which are indispensable are not known.

The main attention in the manufacture is directed to the finding of
colors free from poison and which will not fade, when exposed to light,
if they are intended for a wholesale consumption in painting and the
graphical art.

All colors which we intend to use for marbling purposes must have body,
because bodiless colors become mixed with the size and run off from the
paper in marbling, they therefore can be designated as useless for our
purpose. The most important composite parts of colors for marbling are
certain substances, among which hydrates of argillaceous earths, tin and
lead oxides and sulphate of barium are named as the best.

A great number of coloring matters of organic origin, which are soluble
in water, have the propensity in mixing with a solution of salts of
lead, tin, and argillaceous earths, with a metallic oxide to form a
compound which is soluble with difficulty (and is termed insoluble,)
when the latter is precipitated from the solution by an alkali. The
precipitations which are obtained in this way are known as lake dyes. Of
greater importance for the quality of the marbling colors are the
physical conditions of these precipitates, they