knight.dylan•12d agoProlific Poster

Guy at a bookbinding meetup told me he 'doesn't believe in grain direction'

3 comments

3 Comments

Oh man, that's wild. I mean, I guess if you want your book to turn into a taco shaped mess who am I to judge? Last time I ignored grain direction I ended up with a cover that looked like it was trying to escape from the book it was glued to. Maybe he's just really confident in his glue or something, I don't know. I'd love to see a book he made, honestly - probably has pages that wave at you when you open it. Maybe it's just me but I feel like the grain direction is one of the few things keeping my projects from looking like a craft disaster.

seth_singh2012d ago

Respectfully, I see it a little different. I've messed up grain direction plenty and honestly, most of my books still turned out fine if I used good PVA and clamped the heck out of them. The pages might not open as flat, but they don't wave at you or fall apart unless you're using cheap glue. I think some folks treat grain like it's magic when really it's just a preference for how the book moves. Maybe the guy in the shop just knows his materials really well and has a workflow that makes it work for him.

gibson.avery11d ago

Haha, "craft disaster" I love that. I've had more than a few projects go from looking clean to looking like a kindergartner glued them together because I got lazy with the grain. I'm with you, it's one of those little things that just makes everything behave nicer.