Embossing book cover with a letterpress
I’ve got an idea for someone’s Christmas present…I’d like to give them a vintage Bible with a “leatherette” cover and emboss their name on the front cover. Has anyone done this with a stock hand letterpress? How did it go? I will have one shot at it because there will only be one Bible to be used. What kind of ink should a person use? I’d like it to be in gold ink but not sure whether it should be rubber or oil based. I have some gold powder that I bought from Kelsey many, many years ago that you sprinkle on wet ink and it dries as gold. I have no idea what this stuff is and the label has long since been removed. Anybody ever use that stuff? I don’t want it to look like a botch-job but I cannot find anyone who does hot stamping anywhere in my state. Thanks for any suggestions.
Is there a trophy shop near you? Many of them do hot stamping on ribbons.
Consider printing or foiling a label on leather, sciving the edges and gluing that on the cover. I doubt you’ll be successful printing on the cover of a bound Bible with a “stock hand letterpress”, assuming that is a platen jobber. You’d have one shot, you’d need to hang the cover over the platen with the text block supported on the tympan bale. Odds are not in your favor.
There are foil stamping machines that can do this on a closed book; we used to have a company in town that did monogrammed luggage with theirs. Gone now.
Note, all metallic ink is oil base. The powder you have is bronzing powder, and bronzing is not an easy skill to master.
I’d add that a hand bookbinder could do this with hand finishing tools.
Thanks SharecropperPress and Parallel_Imp—-those are both excellent suggestions. I had not thought of the trophy shop idea and Parallel_Imp, your prediction of my attempt to do it is precisely how I thought it would go and I can see it ending very very badly. I’m going to seek out some bookbinders and trophy shops. I appreciate you folks saving me from making a bad choice and trying to use my letterpress and defacing a vintage Bible.
A Bible bookstore will often have a press specifically for the purpose of imprinting on a Bible. If they do, get the one who has done it the most since it is a vintage Bible.