Honestly the obsession with grain direction in bookcloth is overblown

I've been binding for 5 years and after a dozen books where I deliberately ignored grain direction on the cloth, I've never had a single one warp or fail like people claim it will.

2 comments

2 Comments

eric_carr19d ago

Read a paper from some library science program last year that tested this exact thing. They did accelerated aging tests on books bound with cloth going every which way, and the results basically said grain direction mattered way less than the type of adhesive and how tight the spine was. My own test was with a chunky 400 page sketchbook, used some cheap buckram going perpendicular to the spine, and it's been sitting on my shelf for three years now with zero issues. No warping, no cracked hinges, nothing. I think most of the panic comes from people who learned it from a 1970s handbook and never actually tried breaking the rule themselves.

mary83619d ago

That paper actually changed my mind too...