Last Tuesday my grain direction call cost me 3 hours of rework

I was binding a batch of 8 journals for a local shop and glued up the covers before checking the grain direction on the book cloth. Turned out the cloth grain was running the wrong way, so the covers curled like potato chips after drying. I had to tear all 8 apart, cut new boards, and start over. That whole evening went down the drain because I skipped a 10 second check. Anyone else ever ruin a whole run because of grain direction?

3 comments

3 Comments

troyknight22h ago

Man I've been there, that sinking feeling when you realize you messed up the grain.

mileslane21h ago

Dude, oh man, tell me about it! I had this gorgeous piece of walnut for a nightstand top and got too confident with my belt sander. I went right across the middle on a diagonal and just wrecked the flow of the figure. Had to sand the whole thing down a full 1/16th just to get it looking like it was supposed to, and it still felt like a loss of all that beautiful wood. Makes your stomach drop out when you hear that sander hit the wrong way.

wood.uma18h ago

That 1/16th you lost probably would've been just enough wood to make a nice little jewelry box too, right? Gotta love how the sander always knows the exact worst angle to hit.