c/bookbinders

The first fan binding I did vs. the one I finished this week

Started bookbinding in January with a $40 starter kit and a YouTube video, and my first attempt had gaps in the spine you could fit a pencil through... this week I finished a 400-page novel and the hinges are so clean I keep opening and closing it just to hear the creak. What was the biggest difference you noticed between your first and your latest bind?

That Tuesday in Portland where every hinge fought back

Last spring I had a run of 14 rebinds for a local library and one day, Tuesday I think, every single hinge just refused to cooperate. The boards kept shifting on me, I snapped two finishing nails, and by 3 PM I had glue on my glasses and a pile of rejected covers. I finally switched to my old bone folder and slowed way down, which saved the last 5 books. Has anyone else had a day where the simple stuff just goes sideways for no reason?

Corner folding trick from a library book finally made sense to me

Last week I was repairing this old children's book from the 1960s, the cover was hanging on by a thread and the corners were all beat up. I kept trying to clamp the corners down with binder clips and heavy books, but they'd always puff back out after a day. Then I remembered this technique I saw in a library restoration manual years ago, where you dampen the corner cloth with a tiny bit of water and use a bone folder to crease it before gluing. I tried it on this one weathered copy of Charlotte's Web that had that musty thrift store smell, and honestly the corner laid flat perfectly for the first time in probably 40 years. It was one of those moments where I realized I'd been fighting the material instead of helping it settle. I mean, I've been binding books for maybe 6 years now and never thought to moisten the cloth first. Has anyone else had a basic trick like that just sneak up on them after years of doing it the hard way?

PVA vs paste, I finally get why my spines kept cracking

After 14 months of binding at my kitchen table in Portland, I figured out that I was using library paste for everything, including the spines. Someone on another forum said it in passing, but it finally clicked when my last 3 journals all split down the hinge. PVA has that flex, you know, it moves with the paper when you open the book flat. Paste dries stiff and brittle, which is fine for some things but not for a spine that gets bent constantly. I switched to a 50/50 PVA and paste mix for my text blocks and the difference was immediate. Has anyone else had to unlearn a adhesive habit that messed up their early projects?

I finally tried a bone folder on leather and it left permanent marks

I've been binding for about 2 years now, mostly cloth and paper covers. Last month I decided to try a full leather journal and used my trusty bone folder to crease the hinge joints like I always do. Big mistake. The leather showed every single pass as a shiny, compressed line that won't buff out, even after a day of pressing. My mentor in Portland told me, "That's why you use a teflon folder on anything with a grain you care about." I thought she was just being fussy. Now I'm wondering if there's a way to fix these creases or if I need to re-cover the whole thing. Has anyone else wrecked a leather cover this way, and did you find a trick to lift those marks or just start over? I keep going back and forth on whether to tear it apart or call it a "character mark."

Pressing book cloth with a temp controlled iron changed everything for me

I was fighting bubbles and wrinkles on buckram covers for 2 years, so I tried using my wife's $30 clothes iron on the lowest setting with a scrap parchment sheet between, and after 3 practice covers the cloth lay flat like it was glued by a machine, anybody else use an iron instead of a real book press?

TIL my bone folder was actually a plastic knife from a dollar store repack

Went to reorder my usual bone folder last week, $12 online, but the package came with no brand stamp. Tried it on a batch of 6 French fold booklets and it left a weird waxy streak on every crease. Wiped it clean, still streaked, so I cut a corner off the thing and it smelled like cheap toy plastic. Checked the heat bend and it warped at room temp, my real bone folder never does that. Some seller is clearly reselling dollar store cutlery as bookbinder tools. Where do you all source bone folders that actually hold up, or should I just switch to a Teflon one and skip the gamble?

The difference 2 years made in my flat backed books, is it the glue or the habit?

So I started binding flat backs about 2 years ago and my early ones look rough, like the spines are wavy and the covers pull. Lately though, they come out almost perfect, straight and smooth. I keep going back and forth on what actually changed. Did my PVA technique get better since I switched to a thinner brush and started waiting longer between coats? Or did I just finally stop rushing the pressing time, like I used to pull them out after 20 minutes instead of giving them the full hour? I'm leaning toward the waiting being the big one, but I'm curious if anyone else saw a similar jump in quality at the 2 year mark. What do you think caused your biggest before and after?

Polyurethane glue beats PVA for leather wraps, finally convinced

I always stuck with PVA for book cloth and leather wraps because that's what my mentor used in Portland. But last month I had a batch of thin goatskin that kept curling at the spine, so I grabbed a bottle of Gorilla Glue from the hardware store. One coat on the board, one on the leather, clamped for 40 minutes, and it held flat with zero creep. Has anyone else had better luck with polyurethane on flexible cover materials, or am I the last one to come around?

Had a customer bring in a 1927 novel with duct tape on the spine

This guy came into my shop last month with his grandfather's old copy of The Sun Also Rises, and someone had patched the spine with duct tape decades ago. I spent 2 hours carefully peeling it off with a heat gun and citrus solvent, and underneath was this gorgeous red cloth binding with gold lettering still intact. He teared up when he saw it, and it made me wonder: do you guys ever get nervous about removing old DIY repairs, or do you just go for it and hope the glue hasn't stained the board?

A cereal box taught me more about hinge design than 5 years of binding

Last Tuesday I was eating breakfast and the kid's cereal box flap tore off along the perforation, again. I got so annoyed I grabbed it and studied the fold, the scoring, the way the cardboard fibers were compressed. Then it hit me, I've been fighting with book hinges that crack or fail at the joint for years, but I never thought about mimicking a box flap's simple scored fold with a cloth hinge. I ran to my bench and tried scoring a heavy paper hinge at a 90 degree angle before gluing it to a text block. It worked way better than my usual method, the joint opened flat without fighting me. I've rebinding a 1940s novel this weekend and I'm going to use that trick. Has anyone else stolen a technique from random packaging or other everyday objects?

Hit 200 hand-bound notebooks and now I second guess every single one

I finished my 200th notebook binding last Tuesday, which felt like a milestone, but then I started flipping through the pile and found at least 15 with crooked spines or loose thread. Part of me thinks the early ones are charming and show progress, the other part wants to burn them all and start over with better tools like that $80 bone folder from Talas in Brooklyn. Anyone else hit a number that made them more critical instead of proud, or do I just need to accept imperfection as part of the trade?

I finally hit 50 hand-sewn headbands and the last one took 10 minutes

I kept track of every binding I finished this year and number 50 felt like a wall, but once I stopped obsessing over perfect stitches and just trusted my bone folder, the whole process got faster, has anyone else noticed a real time drop after a certain count?

The $60 bone folder that got chewed up by my dog, lesson learned

Paid 60 bucks for a proper cow bone folder from a shop in Portland, Maine, and left it on the coffee table for one night. My retriever mistook it for a chew toy and now it looks like a scalloped edge tool, not a smooth one. I've been using a plastic one since, and honestly it works fine for most creases. Anyone else have a favorite tool that got wrecked by a pet or a kid, and what did you replace it with?

A retired binder in Philly told me to stop using PVA on bookcloth, guess who was wrong

He said the glue would bleed through and ruin the texture, and after 4 months of my covers lifting on the corners, I finally switched to wheat paste and now the linen lays flat, has anyone else had PVA fail on them that way?

That $15 bone folder ruined my other one for me

Picked up a cheap Teflon bone folder at a craft store in Portland last month and now my old cow bone one feels like sandpaper, has anyone else switched materials and can't go back?

Question about switching to a sewing press for longstitch bindings

I finally caved and bought a used sewing press off Craigslist for $75 after fighting with my bench vise for months. The vise kept crushing my signatures no matter how I padded it, but now the press is way more stable. Has anyone else made that swap, and did you notice a big difference in your finished spine shape?

My first fancier book cloth order taught me a lesson about grain direction

I ordered a bunch of book cloth from a shop in Portland last month, like 6 different colors, and I just assumed you could cut it any way you wanted. Turns out the cloth has a grain direction just like paper, and I kept trying to fold the covers the wrong way. The whole batch of 12 journals I was making for my sister's bookstore had these weird little puckers at the spine. I noticed it when I set one down next to a store-bought notebook and the difference was so obvious. Now I check the grain before I even cut, and I wet the cloth slightly to soften the fold. Has anyone else had this happen with pre-made book cloth or do you mostly make your own from cotton and starch?

Why is everyone so scared of using PVA for everything?

Industrial sewing machine at a library event split my binding philosophy in two

I was demoing stab binding at the downtown library's maker fair last month, and this older guy in a denim apron watched me jab holes for like 10 minutes. He then offered me his industrial sewing machine, the kind with the walking foot, to try sewing a text block instead of hand stitching. I was skeptical, real skeptical, because I've always felt hand sewing gives that soulful, human touch. But he loaded a 400 page block and ran it through in under 4 minutes, clean and tight. Now I'm stuck between the two camps: hand stitching for small batches, like my 3 or 4 custom journals a week, versus the machine for the bigger commission I keep turning down because it takes 15 hours. His point was, the reader never sees the thread, they feel the hinge, and the machine makes a better hinge. My old mentor would call that heresy. So, has anyone else switched from hand to machine sewing for certain jobs, or do you keep it all by hand no matter the time cost?

Ditch the bone folder for a cheap plastic spatula on tight spines

Ngl, after 12 years of creasing leather with a bone folder on narrow hinges, I tried a $3 kitchen spatula from the dollar store and it flexes better around the joint without leaving those white stress marks, has anyone else found a random tool that works way better than the standard?

Spent 6 hours on a rounded spine, then my glue chose violence

I was in my kitchen last Tuesday, building a rounded spine on a leather journal and the PVA just beaded up on the mull, no grip at all. Tore the whole thing apart at 11pm and rewrapped it with a heavier paste, which fixed it the next morning. Does anyone else keep a backup glue mix nearby for when the humidity suddenly shifts, or am I just cursed?

Pro tip: check your PVA glue batch number before you use it

I found out from a distributor email that a big batch of PVA from a major supplier had a bad pH balance that makes the adhesive fail after a few months. I checked my last 5 gallon bucket, and sure enough, the number matched the recall list. If you bought adhesive in the last 60 days, look up the lot code on the side of the container. Has anyone else had a whole batch of books fall apart months later? That's my biggest nightmare right now.

Unpopular opinion: using PVA glue for everything is a mistake

I always used PVA for all my bookbinding projects, thinking it was the best all-rounder. Then I tried a batch of books with a fabric spine last month and the glue bled right through, ruining the cover. Someone at a shop in Brooklyn told me to try wheat paste for that kind of job, and now I'm wondering what else I've been doing backwards. Do you stick to one glue type or switch based on the materials?

Vent: That time I used PVA glue on a leather binding and it bled through everything

Last saturday I was finishing up a restoration job on an old 1920s poetry book. Thought I'd save time by using PVA for the spine instead of waiting for starch paste to set. Man, what a mistake. The glue seeped through the leather and left these ugly dark stains on the cover. Had to strip it all off and start over with paste. Has anyone else had PVA ruin a leather project like this?