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My custom text block warped bad after I skipped the drying step
I was rebinding a 1950s cookbook last month and got lazy with my PVA. I thought I could glue up the text block and move straight to rounding without letting it sit in the press overnight. Woke up the next morning and the spine was all wavy and the pages wouldn't line up. Had to pull the whole thing apart and start over from the sewing stage. Cost me about 3 hours of work and a nice set of endpapers I'd handmade. Now I put a reminder note right on my workbench that says 'wait or waste.' Has anyone else had a quick shortcut turn into a full redo like that?
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kevin_williams5d ago
Three hours and good endpapers is a rough lesson, but I don't think skipping the dry was the real shortcut. A proper press for the glue up is the main event, not an optional extra you can rush through. Calling it a "speedrun" to waste time is too harsh though, you just learned why that step exists.
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