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My first attempt at rounding a spine was a total mess
I mean, I used to just press down on the text block with my hands and hope for the best, which gave me these lumpy, uneven curves every single time. Then last month I watched a video from a binder in Portland who used a simple wooden dowel and a mallet, rolling it gently across the spine. I tried it with a 1-inch dowel I had in my garage, and the difference was honestly wild. Has anyone else found a weirdly simple tool that fixed a basic step for them?
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the_rowan5mo ago
Seriously, the right jig changes everything. I built a simple cradle from scrap wood to hold the text block at the exact curve I wanted before hammering. Before that, my rounded spines would always slant to one side because my hands were uneven. The cradle forces it into a perfect, even arch. It's just two curved pieces of plywood and some screws.
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paule535mo ago
Remember my friend who tried rounding spines by eye? He spent a whole weekend getting so mad because every book leaned like the Tower of Pisa. He finally gave up and cut a curve into an old foam pool noodle as a quick cradle. It looked silly, but his next book was perfectly straight. Sometimes the simplest jig is the one that saves your sanity.
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