Comment on The Process-Ben's Book

Jen — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:50:47 GMT

Yes, there is a lot of work that goes into repairing books. Thanks for noticing! If you think about it from a mechanical standpoint, it's not enough for the book to look good when it's done, it has to open, and flex, and function too. You always have to take that into consideration when doing a repair, considering materials that allow the book to "do what it has to do." Over-engineering a repair can be just as bad as under-engineering one, and of course there will always be limitations to what one can do.

Regarding the inner hinge break, the hinges are the most common place for damage like this to occur. Books generally have some type of hinge cloth that is adhered across the spine of the book, and pasted down under the end sheets. This is where the strength of the attachment between the text block, and the cover, lies (there can be other types of attachments too depending on the binding, but your basic "library style" hardcover will usually just have a hinge cloth). In the case of Ben's book, the hinge cloth that was used was a pretty weak cloth, and so broke down very easily. The hinges tend to break so easily because they bear the weight, and action of repeated opening of the covers. In a hard cover book, the cover doesn't flex, so the stress rides along that hinge. It tends to be one of the first things to go in most cases.

Comment on The Process-Ben's Book

homero — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:10:42 GMT

Oh dear, who would have thought so much work would be needed for such a little book. The broken inner hinge is painful to look at. What's the usual culprit of an inner hinge breaking anyway?

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Comment on The Process-Ben's Book

Comment on The Process-Ben's Book