Question about trimming book cloth on the grain direction

I watched three different bookbinding videos last week and none of them bother to mention cutting book cloth with the grain, so why does my spine keep cockling after a week when I follow their methods?

2 comments

2 Comments

lilyg831mo ago

Blame those video people honestly, they're out here showing cute little projects but leaving out the boring stuff that actually matters. Book cloth has a grain just like paper does, and if you cut it the wrong way the spine is gonna fight you every single time it opens. I learned this the hard way after making five notebooks in a row that looked like they had a bad sunburn after a week. The sad truth is that most tutorials skip the grain talk because it's not flashy, but it's literally the difference between a book that lays flat and one that feels like it's trying to run away from you. Cut that cloth parallel to the spine direction, that's your best bet here.

the_rowan1mo agoTop Commenter

I read somewhere that book cloth expands and contracts way more on the cross grain, which makes total sense with the cockling issue. @lilyg83 is right, the spine needs that cloth running parallel to stay flat when you open it.