Loading…
21
My grain direction was wrong on 30 straight signatures and I only caught it at the sewing frame
I finished folding a batch of 30 signatures last Friday for a rebind and felt good about it. Then I sat down at the sewing frame and every single one fought me, buckling and shifting no matter how even I kept my tension. Took me a while to figure out I had folded against the grain the entire time, which is why the spines wouldn't sit flat. I grabbed the last three sheets from that same ream and folded them the right way, and they lined up perfectly against the ruler, night and day in maybe 20 seconds of testing. I had to unfold all 30, press them flat again, and start over, which ate my whole Saturday. My question is whether anyone here tests grain direction on every single ream or only when the paper feels off? I clearly need a better habit than eyeballing it.
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
milessmith3d ago
So when you say you caught it at the sewing frame, how far in did you get before it clicked? Like did the first signature already feel wrong and you pushed through all 30 anyway, or did it only hit you after a few of them started doing the same thing? I ask because I've been there and the worst part for me was the slow burn, where each one felt slightly off but I kept telling myself it was my tension or a dull needle. If it took the whole batch fighting you to figure it out, that tells me the paper itself was sneaky about it, so what did the last three sheets feel like when you tested them the right way? Was it obvious right away, or did you only know because they laid flat?
9