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Can we talk about whether a spine should be glued flat or left to flex?
I was rebinding a 1930s cookbook at my bench in Portland last Tuesday and glued the spine tight, and by Thursday the boards were already cracking at the hinge. Now I'm second-guessing the whole thing: tight spine for strength, or hollow back so it opens easy? What do you all do when the paper is that brittle?
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mark_mitchell9d ago
Skip the flat glue on brittle paper like that. A hollow back is the way to go because it lets the book open without fighting you, and the pages don't take the stress at the hinge. I learned that the hard way on an old hymnal and lost two days redoing it. Glue the spine hollow, line the spine with a strip of linen or Japanese tissue, and keep the boards attached with a flexible hinge strip instead of a solid slab of glue. That cookbook paper is probably already shot, so give it room to move and it'll hold up way better.
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