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That week my guillotine blade chipped on the last signature of a 300 page rebind
Last Tuesday I was finishing up a full leather rebind for a customer in Portland, a family bible with about 300 pages that took me almost two weeks of evenings. I had all the signatures sewn, the spine rounded and backed, and I was finally trimming the text block on my old cast iron guillotine. On the very last cut of the very last signature, I heard that awful crunch and the blade chipped right at the corner. Turns out I'd nicked the edge on a hidden staple the owner forgot to mention, and it took a 1/8 inch bite out of the blade I've had for six years. The whole cut line came out ragged and I had to stop right there with the book half done and the customer calling me every day about it. I ended up driving 40 miles to a sharpening shop in Salem and the guy told me that chip was too deep to grind out without losing a lot of blade. I'm still figuring out if I should just eat the cost of a new blade or ask her to cover it since she never told me about the staple. Has anyone ever had luck smoothing a chipped guillotine edge, or am I just buying a new one?
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