Stopped stretching book cloth after a failed spine in my archives class

I always stretched the cloth tight before glueing because an old mentor swore by it, but my last D1 rebind in Portland came out wavy and puckered. Letting it sit loose for 5 minutes before pressing fixed everything, so now I'm questioning every habit I picked up from her. Has anyone else found a standard trick that actually backfires on thicker materials?

1 comments

1 Comment

nancy_davis19d ago

That whole "tighten everything until it screams" advice is basically the default setting for so many crafts, not just bookbinding. It's like the same instinct that makes people over-tighten screws or pull sheets until they tear, you know? The trick is that material can't relax and settle into its own shape if you force it into submission from the start. Your loose five minutes probably let the cloth breathe and find its natural grain, which is honestly a lesson for all of us about patience over brute force. Now I'm side-eyeing every "pull it taut" tip I've ever gotten, especially for anything thicker than paper.