Had a customer point out my endpapers were too tight

I had this older gentleman pick up a rebind I did for a poetry collection and he just said, 'the endpapers are choking the text block.' He showed me how the paper was pulling at the hinge. I realized he was right, I had been cutting them too short to save time and money. Now I leave a good 3mm extra on each endpaper for movement. Has anyone else had a customer call out something that made you rework your whole process?

2 comments

2 Comments

paige42710d ago

So that reminds me of the time I was binding a bunch of old sci-fi paperbacks for a friend and I kept trimming the spine liner way too close to the edge. I thought I was being super efficient with my scraps but then the whole thing just started peeling off after like a week. He didn't say anything about it but I noticed when I picked up the book and the liner was just hanging there loose like a sad little ribbon. Now I always leave a bit of a flap on the liner too, it makes the whole cover feel way more solid.

logan70510d ago

Whoa that @paige427 story hit close to home because I had almost the exact same thing happen but with the endpapers themselves. So when that older guy called me out I thought he was just being picky but then I actually opened and closed the book a few times and heard that little crack sound. That's when it clicked for me, you can't just eyeball the paper and hope it works out. I started measuring every single endpaper with a ruler before I cut anything, and I add that extra 3mm like you mentioned. But here's what I'm wondering now, did you also have to adjust how you glue them down after you gave them more room? Because I found if I left too much paper it created a bunch of wrinkles unless I changed my paste out method completely. Just curious if that bit you too or if you figured out a different way around it.