Bookbinding Supplies, Decorative Blocks and Pallets For Sale

During the winter of 2004 my wife and I were still living in England, though we were shortly to leave England for our new life in France. It was an extremely cold Winter, at least by English standards.

We had sold most of the contents of our workshop, including our typecaster that was going to a new home in a monastery in Italy. We had quite a lot of printers metal left, so I decided to cast sets of decorative blocks and pallets with the metal we had left.

I added extra tin into the mix so as to give more hardness to the blocks.

What you see here is the very last remnants of those blocks and pallets.

Most of you know the cost of brass decorative tools, whilst I do not pretend that these blocks and pallets have the attributes of brass tools, none the less they are perfectly useable and cost a small fraction of brass tools.

Bookbinding supplies have never been cheap but these items could give you an economical way into book decoration.

There is a manual on this site that I suggest you read, it is free to download and shows the gilding process.

The blocks and pallets are as this photo shows, they are mounted on a 5/8 inch lug.

This is the simple method of holding these blocks I devised, I don't think I need to add very mcuh as the picture tells the story, just be sure to get a nice tight fit, finish it by trial and error.

These blocks and pallets are perfectly suitable for blind tooling as the impressions in the leather show.The deeper of the blocks and pallets are also good for tooling in gilt.

Also please note the prices shown include all taxes and shipping to your door by airmail. The price you see is the price you pay, I do so like simplicity.

This is a set of broadly speaking geometricaly shaped pallets, they are 4 inches long and 1 inch deep, the width of each pallet varies slightly according to it's design.

The pallets are at type hieght so they could be printed from.

Price £16.00/$32.00 (including shipping)

This set of pallets is slightly more decorative.

The wooden handle I showed you at the top of the page will hold these pallets quite firm.

There is a tool designed to hold such pallets as these, it costs about $140.00.

My tool costs about 10 cents.

Price £16.00/$32.00 (including shipping)

These four matching corner pieces make a good deep impression as you can see.

They always reminded me of the sort of corner devices you see on Bibles.

Price £16.00/$32.00 (including shipping)

This pair of blocks based on art deco designs, are very deeply etched indeed. The one on the right is meant to be an orange tree.

Price £16.00/$32.00 (including shipping)