Just hit 200 hand-sewn books and I'm starting to question my own rule about glue

I've been binding for about 8 years now, mostly in my basement shop in Cleveland, and I always swore by full sewing no glue on the spines. But last week I finished book number 200, a 400 page poetry collection, and I realized the covers on my older sewn-only books are starting to gap away from the text block faster than I expected. Maybe a thin layer of PVA at the joints isn't cheating after all. Anyone else find their standards shifting after a certain number of books?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_daniel2mo ago

Man, that's a tough realization after 8 years and 200 books. I can only imagine how it feels to look back at all that handwork and wonder if a little glue would've saved some of those gaps. Its like you built this whole philosophy around the craft and now the books are telling you something different. The fact that you're even questioning your own rule shows you really care about the work lasting, not just the pride of doing it one way. I hope you don't beat yourself up too much over it just feels like part of the learning curve.

fiona3302mo agoMost Upvoted

Consider this: maybe the gap is actually part of the book's personality over time. Books age like people, and that little bit of looseness shows it lived, it was read and handled and loved. Glue might have kept it tight but it would have frozen it in time, like a museum piece instead of a well loved friend. There's something honest about a book that sags a little, it tells you it did its job. You might find yourself missing those gaps one day if you fill them all.

tyler_fox4128d ago

Ngl, I gotta push back on this whole "personality" thing. That gap isn't personality, it's damage. If your car has a dent in the door you don't call it character, you get it fixed. A book that's coming apart isn't "honest" it's just falling apart. I've got books from the 70s that are tight as ever because someone took care of them. The looseness doesn't mean it was loved, it means it was abused or poorly made. You can still read a book and handle it without letting it sag like an old couch.