I covered pages of my sketchbook with possible designs for the title of the book. Finally, I chose a simple layout with decorations relating to the oak tree. The text included a few words in italics;
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Clearing away the wood is a very time-consuming affair. There is no satisfactory way to speed this up, in my opinion, but there is good practice: use a round ended scorper, keep it very sharp indeed and only clear for a few minutes at a time. Even with boxwood, a sharp tool will cut through with little effort, especially if one makes small cuts, rather than trying to plough a furrow across a large area of the block.
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Again, I decided to have part of the decoration breaking out from the "frame" of the block; this called for more careful clearing.
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Finally, I engraved leaves on the sinuous line withing the border of the block:
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Before proofing this block, I started to cut another. This one contains three separate texts that will be separated before printing. As usual for black lettering, I marked out the text and engraved round it:
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Gradually, I cleared around the text. I spent two full days on this block.
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The engraving light show the marks made by the round scorper very clearly. The ridges would pick up ink and show as black lines so I need to lower the whole surface even more:
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Finally, the block is ready to proof:
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I cut the block into three pieces using a framing saw. Two of the three pieces were combined with the title to make the title page. Here they are on the bed of the small Albion press:
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I used my normal arrangement of a clear plastic file fixed to the tympan on top of the make-ready. This holds the paper. You can see the windows cut into the file - the blocks print through these, keeping the surface of the sheet clean.
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The final result:
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All of the printing is now done. Yesterday, I worked the handpress from before 8am until after 6pm and then engraved through the evening until just before midnight. Today, I trimmed paper and then printed from 9am until 5pm. This evening, I checked and folded yesterdays sheets. I am now going to mark the folded sheets ready to make the sewing holes. I plan to stop at midnight so that I can make an early start tomorrow - sewing day!