Had a talk with a retired binder at the craft fair that shifted my whole approach

I was set up at the Eugene Spring Craft Fair last Saturday next to a guy named Frank who's been binding books since the 1970s. He watched me struggle with a curved spine on a rebind and just said 'you're fighting the grain instead of working with it.' That one sentence made me realize I'd been ignoring paper direction for nearly 2 years. Has anyone else had a random stranger drop a tip that totally changed their process?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_thomas1mo ago

Heard a buddy say almost the same thing to a woodworker once.

tessacarter1mo ago

Almost the same thing to a woodworker" - that reminds me of the time my uncle told a plumber his pipes looked "a bit bow-legged." The plumber just looked at him for a solid five seconds, set down his wrench, and said "well at least they're not cross-eyed." My uncle didn't get why he was annoyed. They worked in silence the rest of the afternoon.