Hand finishing on books requires patience, skill and much practice. Handling gold leaf can present endless frustrations to even the most accomplished bookbinder.

This class will show students how to execute neat, pleasing finishes without using gold leaf, thus concentrating on the fundamental skills necessary to achieve good lettering and decoration of spines and boards.

The class will concentrate on five techniques: blind tooling on leather; tooling with carbon paper to achieve a solid black result; freestyle carbon tooling on leather or cloth boards using the one line wheel; tooling titles with real gold foil, using a template to ensure accuracy; and tooling gold  lines using a fool-proof guide.

All these techniques have been developed or learnt by Dominic over the years in various binderies, where, for reasons of expediency, finishing with gold leaf was not practiced. The alternatives, as you will see, are very impressive! 

Materials to bring: bone folder, metal ruler, scalpel, cutting mat, dividers

Date & Time: Saturday & Sunday, July 19 & 20, 2014 |  9:30am – 5:30pm

Workshop + Materials Fee: $350

Prerequisites: None

Please review the SF Center for the Book Registration Policies before signing up for a class

About the Instructor | Dominic Riley

Dominic Riley learned bookbinding at age 16 from Benedictine monks and at the London College of Printing. He spent the last 10 years in San Francisco teaching, lecturing and restoring rare books. He now has a bindery with Michael Burke in England's Lake District and serves as vice chairman of the Society of Bookbinders.

He also recently won the top award of £10,000 ($15,670.89) at the second Sir Paul Getty Bodleian Bookbinding Prize 2013 ceremony.The BBC filed the following report. To view the original article click here.

Past Student Reviews:

“Dominic is a masterful teacher. Very good with ALL students”

“Superb! Set the time frame very well so we could all complete work. Very helpful to slow learners!”

“Instructor was amazing- knowledge of technique, history, and personal anecdotes was informative and interesting”

"Dominic's classes are always worth attending. You learn about the history as well as the binding you are studying"