Just realized I've been marring my endpapers wrong for 10 years

Got coffee with a guy from the local guild last Saturday and he showed me how to use a bone folder on the grain instead of against it. Simple thing, but now my endpapers lay flat instead of bubbling up on the spine. Has anyone else had a basic habit they stuck with way too long without questioning?

3 comments

3 Comments

emma_jones17d agoMost Upvoted

and that's the thing, once you know the grain direction trick it's like "why did nobody tell me this sooner?" but i gotta ask, did you notice if the bubbling was worse on one side of the spine than the other? i mean, i had the same issue for years and it always seemed like the left side was where the problems showed up first, then the right would follow a few months later. was it like that for you too or just me being clumsy with the glue?

drews5517d ago

Hey @emma_jones, had a buddy who did restoration work and he told me the bubbling always hit the left side first on his projects too, not just you being clumsy. He figured out it was because of how he was holding the bone folder, putting more pressure on one side without realizing it. Took him switching up his whole work station layout to finally get it even both ways.

perry.jesse17d ago

Oh man, I gotta say I used to be skeptical about the whole grain direction thing. I thought it was one of those old wives' tales that people just repeat without proof. But seeing this breakdown about the pressure from the bone folder actually explains so much. I always figured it was just uneven glue application or maybe the humidity in my workspace messing with things. Now I'm thinking back to all those projects where the left side would bubble up and I'd get so frustrated, not realizing I was literally holding the tool wrong. This really changed my mind about how much small mechanical stuff like grip and workstation layout actually matters in craft work.