Finishing Press, Beech, 20 in

Description

A hardwood finishing press for holding a book by its shine while the spine is worked — backing cornered, headbands sewn, or a title tooled. Cut from kiln-dried beech, faced true and drawn together by two steel screws with hardwood handles, so the jaws close parallel and grip along the full length rather than pinching at one end. Beech is used because it is dense, close-grained and forgiving: it will take a knock without splintering and it will not mark a covered board the way a metal jaw does. The press is meant to be held in a lying press or laid across a tub, and the underside is left flat for that. Finished with oil rather than lacquer so it can be re-oiled rather than stripped, and so spilled paste washes off instead of lifting a film.