A couple weeks go by while I'm slugging away at these edges; I'm not very happy with the results and I'm feeling like a lightweight. But I've had some great conversations with my colleagues and the good fortune to be re-introduced to the notes distributed by Peter Geraty (of Praxis Bookbindery) as he demonstrated edge
gilding at the Guild of Book Workers Standards meeting a few years back. What I like most about Peter's approach, besides the voluminous practical information, is his insistence that over time, and with repetition and practice, you'll build you're own repertoire of materials and technique. 
I think this goes for everything we do. I'm grateful to all who are open with their knowledge of bookbinding, and hope over the years to be able to contribute in a like fashion.
So here's egg glaire. My version is an egg white and an equal volume of water whisked together vigorously, and left to sit overnight. The settled mixture is dropped through layers of cheese cloth or a coffee filter to remove any offending matter.
(6/19/08) A couple weeks back I was reminded by my friend Johnny at Quercus Press that we'd used 1/2 egg white + 1/2 vinegar to produce our glaire for Get Me the President. I gave it a try and results have been stunningly positive. I'm getting much cleaner and harder edges, plus it doesn't go foul. He claims to still have a quantity from that project that's still smelling fresh. Much obliged, Johnny! I'm also using this combination with the bole wash, and it's brushing up nicely.
I'd been using wheat paste with bole as filler in the last go-round, but have been much happier mixing the bole with egg glaire---the color is more intense and the coverage more even.
The bole/glaire is brushed on, then rubbed in with a ball of crumpled Japanese tissue (a la Mr. Geraty) from spine to fore-edge.
Another huge discovery over the last couple weeks was the use of a shoe brush to burnish the edge. I'd been referring to John Mitchell's book on Edge Decoration, where a passing reference was made to "brush burnishing". Peter Geraty again fleshes this out; it's a shoe brush, and after the initial coat of bole/glaire is laid down, and rubbed in with Japanese tissue, the surface is burnished with a shoe brush.
A second layer of bole/glaire is brushed on, allowed to dry thoroughly, the brush burnished til smooth.
An agate burnisher is used, in multiple passes, to fuse the top edges of the pages together with the bole/glaire.
I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but here's my first decent edge, warts and all. It got scraped off the next morning, but it was the first time in all this when the steps made sense, the edge had it's moments of reciprocating affection and I thought, "Aaah, I might actually pull this off someday."
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