zara_sanchez•21d agoMost Upvoted

Rant: I spent 6 months using the wrong grain direction on my covers

I got into bookbinding about a year ago and I thought I had it all figured out. I was cutting my book board and covering it with paper, but every single cover I made would warp a little after a few days. I just figured it was normal for handmade books. Then my buddy from a local binding group in Cleveland came over and saw my setup. He asked why my grain was running vertical on the covers instead of horizontal. I had no idea what he meant at first. He showed me how the paper and board need the grain going the same way as the spine for the book to lay flat. I felt like an idiot for not catching it sooner. Has anyone else found a simple mistake that changed how their books turned out once they fixed it?

3 comments

3 Comments

olivia_lopez9821d ago

Gluing up endpapers wrong gave me the same nightmare before I fixed it.

wright.leo21d ago

Nah, I've been binding for years and never bothered with grain direction at all.

theajohnson21d ago

Did you ever see that video from DAS Bookbinding where he shows the cover warp test? I had a buddy who was having the same issue, covers curling up like potato chips. He spent like 8 months blaming his glue, blaming the humidity in his apartment, even tried pressing them under a stack of encyclopedias for a week. Nothing worked. Then he went to a workshop and someone pointed out his grain was wrong. He fixed it the next day and said it was like magic, all his covers laid flat after that. He still gets mad thinking about all those ruined books he chucked in the trash.