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?

3 comments

3 Comments

wood.uma21h 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.

grant.olivia18h ago

My 1920s atlas is still holding up perfectly.

phoenix_martin4012h 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.