Vent: That moment my spine text frayed right before the fair

I was at my workbench in Portland last Saturday, about to glue the spine on a new binding for a craft fair. The linen I'd prepared had a hidden thread that started unraveling as I worked it around the boards. I had to stop, cut a fresh piece of 90lb paper, and shape a new spine cover in a rush. It held fine in the end, but has anyone else had a material fail on you at the worst time?

2 comments

2 Comments

davis.casey1mo ago

That frayed linen story hits close to home. Had a similar thing happen with a roll of bookcloth I'd been using for months. Every project before that day was fine, then suddenly the adhesive backing started flaking off in chunks right as I was wrapping the spine. Ended up having to switch to a handmade paste paper cover on the fly. The book actually came out looking better than planned, but the panic of watching your carefully laid plans fall apart is real. Now I always test a small strip of any new material before I commit to the whole project.

roseb621mo ago

davis.casey i feel you on that "panic of watching your carefully laid plans fall apart" thing. i had a similar moment where my glue pot decided to separate right as i was about to apply it to a brand new spine. the oil and water just split apart and i had a soupy mess instead of nice thick paste. i ended up scraping it off and using a completely different adhesive i had stashed away, some old wheat paste i made a week before. it actually ended up giving the spine a really nice matte finish that looked way better than the shiny stuff i was gonna use. so yeah, sometimes the material fail is a blessing in disguise, just gotta be ready to roll with it.