Took me 4 years to figure out my grain direction was backwards

I was putting together a leather-bound journal last month and the cover warped so bad it looked like a Pringle. A guy at the local craft store named Dave asked if I was cutting with the grain and I had no clue what he meant. Been flipping my paper grain wrong on every single project since I started binding. Anyone else miss this basic step for way too long?

2 comments

2 Comments

xena_murphy2d agoMost Upvoted

Wait do you mean grain direction matters on paper too, not just wood? I always thought that was only for cutting wood or leather. I've been folding paper for notebooks for years and now I'm wondering if my pages are all warped because of this. The way you described the Pringle cover hit home though, I ruined a whole batch of sketchbooks last spring and couldn't figure out why they wouldn't lay flat. Kinda embarrassed I never looked into it before.

joseph_baker2d ago

Wait, you went through that same heartbreak with sketchbooks? I feel you. What finally clicked for me was when I started tearing paper instead of cutting it for my notebooks. If you tear a sheet and it rips straight and clean, that's the grain direction. If it goes all wiggly and crooked, you're tearing against the grain. I wasted a whole ream of Strathmore before I figured that out (got so mad I almost threw it out the window). Now I always test a scrap first, and my books actually lay flat when I open them.