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?
I stopped by the bindery at the University of Chicago library last month and watched them use wheat paste on a 200-year-old ledger. The head conservator said PVA is too brittle for certain papers and will crack after 50 years. Am I wrong for thinking we should slow down and match the glue to the job instead of grabbing the fastest option?
Some old timer named Harold at the Seattle Bookbinders Guild meeting last Tuesday told me PVA works for all book repairs. I used it on a 1920s novel with a leather spine and the glue bled through the hinges, made a mess. Now I'm stuck redoing the whole thing with wheat paste, which takes way longer. Anyone else run into bad advice from the so-called experts at these meetups?
I was regluing the spine on a 1910 encyclopedia last month and this guy in his 70s walks into my shop. He said I was ruining it with PVA glue. Told me to use wheat paste for the leather to board attachment so the leather can breathe. I thought he was full of it but tried it on a junker first. The leather lifted after three days. Stuck with PVA myself. Has anyone else had better luck with wheat paste on old leather?
I was at a workshop in Portland last spring and this old bookbinder pointed out that my grain direction on the spine liner was off the whole time. Has anyone else had a basic technique click years later and feel like a total rookie?
I was rebinding a 1920s poetry collection for a library in Philly and couldn't decide which adhesive to use. I ended up going with wheat paste because it's reversible, but the drying time took forever... has anyone else had trouble with it warping thin pages?
I took a weeklong workshop at the Chicago Center for Bookbinding and half the class swore by PVA for linings while the other half said it makes the spine too stiff and ruins the joint movement, so which side is actually right and has anyone here ruined a book testing this out?
I had this nice piece of goat leather for a journal cover last Saturday and figured I'd use my bone folder to crease the spine like I do with paper. Within two passes the grain started showing these weird shiny spots that looked like I'd pressed too hard. Turns out bone folders can actually burnish leather if you apply even moderate pressure, which is fine for paper but not for soft leathers. Anyone else learned this the hard way or am I the only one who skipped that chapter?
I picked up bookbinding about 2 months ago as a hobby. My first project was a small journal, and I used way too much PVA glue. The pages were all wrinkled, the spine cracked after 3 days, and there was dried glue everywhere. I compared it to a book I made last week and the difference is insane. Now I use a bone folder to get tight creases and I measure my glue with a popsicle stick instead of just dumping it on. The covers actually stay flat and the pages turn right. Has anyone else had that moment where you look back at your first book and just cringe?
I was at a workshop in Portland and used regular PVA glue on some nice calfskin leather for a journal cover. It soaked right through and left these nasty dark stains that wouldn't come out. The instructor told me I should've used hide glue or a PH-neutral adhesive made for leather. Has anyone else had luck fixing that kind of stain or do I just need to cut my losses and buy new leather?
Last Tuesday I was at a local bookbinding workshop here in Portland and this older guy named Dave was showing us how he does his spines. I've been using my bone folder the same way for 3 years, just pressing down folds. He showed me he actually uses the curved edge to burnish the paper before folding, then again after. It makes the crease so clean I can't believe I missed it. He said he learned it from a bookbinder in the 80s. Has anyone else picked up a simple trick like that from watching someone in person?
I used to always use wheat paste for backing book cloth because that's what my mentor taught me back in 2013. But last month I tried methyl cellulose for a batch of 8 journals and it was way less fussy - no worrying about cooking it right or mold growing in the jar after a few days. The cloth lays flatter too, which is nice for those thin decorative papers. Has anyone else made this switch or found another adhesive that works better for cloth?
I was working on a leather journal last Saturday and my spine just peeled open after 2 days of drying. Turns out my $4 bottle of generic PVA wasn't actually pH neutral or flexible enough for bookbinding leather. I had to carefully scrape off all the failed glue and start over with a proper bookbinding grade adhesive from a local craft store. The new glue cost me $12 but it held perfectly. Has anyone else had a project fail because of bad glue choices or is it just me?
I spent 3 years wondering why my handmade covers kept warping and it took a grumpy binder at a craft fair in Portland pointing at my cloth and saying 'you cut that against the grain, didn't you' for me to finally get it has anyone else wasted stacks of material because of this?.
I took on a batch of 20 vintage cookbooks from a local shop last month, thinking it'd be easy money since they all just needed new spines and corner repairs. Five of them had mold hiding under the endpapers, three were printed on that crumbly 70s paper that falls apart if you breathe on it, and my awl snapped halfway through the first sewing session on Tuesday. Has anyone else had a project spiral into chaos that fast or did I just pick the wrong stack of books?
I spent $80 on a used nipping press from a local guy on marketplace and it's a total game changer for making sharp spines. My previous setup with bricks and boards gave me uneven results that drove me crazy on every project. Anyone else upgrade from a cheap DIY setup to a real press and notice a huge difference?
Been using PVA for years on paper repairs but that guy at the bindery in Columbus said I'd regret it on fragile leather, and after 6 months the joints on my last project peeled apart completely, has anyone else had PVA fail on older materials?
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?
I used to get tiny scratches on the leather grain with the bone tool, especially on calfskin. After a project last week, I switched to a Teflon folder and the surface stays perfectly smooth now. Anyone have a favorite brand for these?
I was using the back of a butter knife for months to fold signatures (don't judge me, I was desperate), then I dropped $50 on a nice bone folder from a craft supply shop. That thing makes such clean, sharp creases with zero effort, plus it doesn't leave those weird metal marks on the paper. Has anyone else tried switching from a cheap tool to a mid-range one and noticed a huge difference?
They're having them done in cheap, glued plastic covers instead. Feels like a crime against the craft. Anyone in the Midwest know a binder who could take on a big institutional job?
It was a cheap plastic one for smoothing pie crusts, but it left zero marks on the cloth and gave me a sharper crease. Anyone have a favorite weird tool that ended up being perfect for binding?
He'd always say 'the pattern runs with the fold, not against it,' and I finally saw why when the pages in that antique book tore along the marbling lines after a simple repair.
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?
I was using a bone folder on my rounded spines, pressing straight down like the book was flat. Saw a video from a binder in Portland where they rolled the folder along the curve, following the shape. Tried it on a cookbook project last night and the difference is huge, no more flat spots. Has anyone else had a spine rounding method that just clicked for them?