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I finally tried sewing on cords for a 300 page text block and now I get why the old books hold up
A guy at the Omaha bindery meetup kept telling me cords were overkill for small runs, but I tried it on a 300 page novel I was rebinding and the spine opened way flatter than my usual glued setup. Took me about 2 hours longer per book, but the pages sat right and nothing cracked at the gutter after a week of my kid flipping through it. I always figured cords were just a flex for people showing off, but now I'm hooked. Anyone got a good tip for keeping the cord spacing even when the sections get thin at the end?
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wendy_jackson4d ago
Man, I gotta push back on this one. Two extra hours per book is a ton of time for a spine that only held up for a week, which honestly proves nothing in book terms. Your kid flipping through it for seven days is not the same as a book sitting on a shelf for 20 years, and glue setups can open flat too if you grain the paper right and don't skimp on the spine lining. For small runs, cords are extra work that most folks will never notice or pay for, and if your sections get thin at the end you're fighting uneven spacing on top of it. Sounds less like a fix and more like a hobby you picked up a taste for.
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