Question about grain direction in book cloth

I was binding a journal last week and noticed the cloth on the spine was bubbling up after a few days. Turns out I had the grain running head to tail instead of side to side on the boards. Does anyone else find that book cloth manufacturers don't label the grain clearly? I'm thinking of switching to a different supplier but wanted to ask if this is a common issue.

2 comments

2 Comments

anthony_jackson1mo agoMost Upvoted

I had this same issue with a batch of cloth I got from a place in Chicago three years ago. The stuff looked fine but after about a week the spine on two journals just started peeling away from the boards. I called them up and the guy said it was probably the grain but he couldn't tell me which way it ran on any of their rolls. I ended up switching to a supplier that cuts their cloth with the grain marked on the backing paper, saved me a lot of headaches. Some of these manufacturers just don't care about consistency.

angela89029d ago

I grabbed a roll of red linen once and didn't check it until I'd glued half a dozen books.