My first leather cover split right down the spine during a book fair in Portland

I was demoing at the Oregon Convention Center last spring when I opened a new journal to show the binding and the leather just cracked along the hinge. The crowd went quiet and I wanted to disappear. Turned out I had glued the leather too tight against the spine without enough flex room. I remade it later that week with a looser hollow back and it works fine now. Has anyone else dealt with leather cracking on their first try?

3 comments

3 Comments

jake7473d ago

Oh man, that Portland crowd going quiet is the stuff of bookbinding nightmares right there. You pretty much described my first attempt at making a leather journal and I felt that secondhand embarrassment in my bones. That tight glue job is such a classic newbie mistake, I literally did the exact same thing but mine cracked the first time I tried to open it on my kitchen counter. My dog just stared at me like I was an idiot, honestly preferred your live audience situation. That looser hollow back fix is a game changer though, feels like a rite of passage in this craft.

wright.leo2d ago

Hell yeah, I feel that. My first journal had pages so tight you couldn't even slip a fingernail in there to open it, what a disaster.

olivia_lopez982d ago

Cut through the satisfaction of that fix with a practical question - have you tried the same trick on a different spine lining yet? @jake747 mentioned the crowd going quiet, but I'm more curious if the looser hollow back has held up after a few months of use. Want to know if it's a permanent fix or if it shifts over time.