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I finally tried sewing on cords after a class in Ann Arbor and now I can't decide if my old method was fine or if I was just used to it
I took a two day workshop in Ann Arbor back in March and the instructor had us sew a small book on three cords instead of the tapes I've used for about six years. It was $180 for the class and honestly I signed up just to get out of the house. The cords gave me a much rounder spine and the book opened flatter, but it also took me almost twice as long to finish one text block. Now I keep going back and forth on whether the extra work pays off for anything other than nicer stuff, because for a quick repair or a cheap journal I'm not sure a customer would even notice. Half of me wants to switch over for good and half of me thinks I'm just chasing a fancy look. For the folks here who sew on cords, do you do it on every book or only when the job calls for it?
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matthewsullivan1mo ago
Did the instructor actually give you a reason for cords beyond how they look? Because honestly I went the other way on this. I sewed on cords for a couple years early on and ended up going back to tapes for almost everything. My feeling is the rounder spine and flatter open is nice, but a lot of that comes from how tight you pull and how you round and back the book, not the cords themselves. You can get most of that flat opening with good tapes if you set the shoulders right. And twice the time is twice the time, that adds up fast when you have a stack of jobs waiting. For a repair or a cheap journal nobody is flipping through it checking for cord bumps under the spine lining.
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