I think everyone is overcomplicating grain direction on endpapers

I keep seeing posts online and in workshops where people obsess over getting the grain direction exactly right on endpapers, like the book will fall apart if it is off by a fraction. In 12 years of binding books at my shop in Portland, I have used endpapers with the grain going the wrong way on maybe 20 or 30 projects, mostly by accident or because the paper stock I had was too nice to waste. Not a single one of those books has come back with warping or cracking, even after a few years on someone's shelf. I am not saying grain direction means nothing, but I think people stress about it way more than the actual durability of a well glued hinge. Has anyone else had good luck ignoring the grain rule on purpose?

2 comments

2 Comments

saraho481mo ago

Portland bookbinder here too, and yeah I have definitely glued on endpapers with the grain running crossways on purpose when I was low on stock and needed to finish a rush order. That was five years ago on a set of journals I still see at the shop sometimes, the hinges are fine and the pages never buckled or warped like people warn about. The real trick is getting that paste consistency right and letting the book press overnight, that does way more for hinge strength than worrying about which direction the fibers run.

the_morgan1mo ago

It's funny how that works... seems like half the "rules" we swear by are just traditons that nobody thought to question. Like how you always hear you gotta peel a banana from the bottom but really it's fine either way.