Tried to rush a leather cover repair in my garage...

Split the spine on a 1920s poetry book I was restoring. Was working too fast, thought I could skip the glue drying time. Heard that crack sound at 2 AM. Took me three tries to fix it with Japanese tissue and wheat paste. Had to redo the whole hinge. Anyone else get impatient and wreck something?

2 comments

2 Comments

blairstone17d ago

Split the spine" feels like you're making it sound like a medical emergency. I get being upset about a book, but come on, it's a 1920s poetry book, not a first folio or something. Sure, it's old and has history, but stuff gets damaged. That's just life with paper things. I've definitely had moments where I rushed a repair and made it worse, but I usually just shrug and move on. If it still opens and reads, it's fine. People get way too precious about old books sometimes, like every scratch is the end of the world.

fionaw5417d ago

I get what you're saying @blairstone, but that 1920s poetry book has already survived 100 years of life so I think it deserves a little more care than a scratched up paperback from the charity shop lol. Old paper gets brittle and easy to tear, so a rushed repair can actually make it unreadable pretty fast if you're not careful.