Had a buddy in Portland show me I was gluing my book spines backwards for like 7 years

We were doing a repair on this old 1950s encyclopedia set and he just kinda stopped and laughed. Said I had the grain direction flipped on the spine liner. I had been doing it the same way since my first summer binding at a little shop in Ohio. Nobody ever told me the glue will shrink different if the grain runs the wrong way. Books started cracking after a couple years and I thought that was just normal wear. Has anyone else had a basic technique totally blow up on them after years?

3 comments

3 Comments

leep892mo ago

Did your buddy find anything else you've been doing backwards?

patp792mo ago

Yeah swapping my grip on the bar fixed my form, maybe he could check that next.

kaip112mo ago

nah actually i think you might be mixing up what the original post was about. the guy was talking about his grip on the bar, not doing stuff backwards. swapping your grip is a common fix for form issues, not really a "doing things backwards" type thing. if anything it's more about hand placement and wrist angle. probably just a misunderstanding but yeah, no buddy involved here looking for backwards stuff.