Serious question, has anyone else been totally wrong about paste paper?

I always thought it was just messy craft stuff, not real bookbinding, until I saw a demonstration at the Guild of Book Workers conference in Chicago. Watching someone make a complex, marbled sheet that looked like stone completely changed my mind about its potential for covers. What's a technique you wrote off that actually impressed you later?

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wood.uma5mo ago

A friend mocked French sewing until she saw how strong the spines were on some old ledgers. She uses it for all her thick journals now.

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grant.olivia5mo ago

My 1920s atlas is still holding up perfectly.

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phoenix_martin405mo ago

My buddy found a 1910s French cookbook at a yard sale, and the binding is still tight as a drum. He cooks from it every week and the pages don't even wiggle. It's like what @wood.uma said about those ledgers, just built different back then. Stuff was made to last.

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