Best Practice for Box Material Grain Direction // Adventures in Bookbinding

[@ctfddftba]

Hi, new to your channel and love it! Do you have a “paper and board basics” video? I didn’t see any titles that looked like it would go over types/thicknesses of board and when best used, or types/thickness/acronyms for different types of paper? I did watch the one on paper grain!

[@ospreys_view4798]

“Let’s keep pesky chemistry out of this.” As a chemistry teacher, I now feel obliged to have my students explain what this “magic sticky tape” is and its impact on paper grain. Thanks for the laugh and the interesting discussion.

[@andie08nunes]

I could watch your videos for hours! Since I can't, I watch the old videos, here and on Patreon, often!

[@FriedaFriemel]

8:50 "... and so why not?" Love your thinking! I've learned so much from you in the last couple years and forgotten just as much. Your giving us so many important informations. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and your efforts to preserve this valuable expertise.

[@Ninjadoc2000]

I've been wondering for a while what grain direction I had to use when making boxes! Great video, thank you DAS!

[@carolinelabbott2451]

Me too. Glad he made this to answer the queastion of grain direction in box making. I have been holding off making a box because of this. I want the first box I make to last a good while.

[@humdrum_and_callum]

I've been wondering about grain direction in box making for so long! I found that short grain on the sides of the boxes was too unstable and annoyingly pliable when using a bone folder to burnish, but I was always uncertain if I was doing it "right" or not. This is a much appreciated confirmation of what I was thinking.

[@mortranvids]

As always, thoughtful, considered and humorous. I think its about time I head over to your patreon...

[@dsherman9438]

I always love your videos. Your voice is perfect and the information you present is always useful. I have learned so much. Thank you.

[@jessicawicher]

I learn so many things from each of your videos. Thank you very much!

[@williamowens5144]

So much info in less than 10 minutes!

[@judyofthewoods]

I had been wondering about grain direction on boxes and decided to do the sides of glued boxes in the same manner as the folded. My thinking was that the expansion of one edge of a corner on shallow boxes would be negligible, but if the short grain base was to be glued to a long grain wall there would be a more noticeable difference. That said, I assumed that the expansion would persist after drying and warp the side. Am I wrong; does the grain "settle" when dry? Long grain all-round should make a stronger wall, I would think.

[@DASBookbinding]

It's an excellent point. I've considered it and decided that having all the walls expand in height the same might be a slight advantage. But I suspect the real answer is that it isn't super important.

[@neoninsv]

Recently discovered your channel. Love the work! Thank you for sharing your skills with the world.

[@user-nr5xf3gz2q]

Video idea; if you have not done it already. Literature review. Going over the books you recommend newbies or seasoned (seperate sections perhaps) folks read, or even pick up for reference. This video mentioend several which made me be interested in acquiring more.

[@DASBookbinding]

Yep, I have a video on the 12 books I recommend to start with. Check out the channel guide, linked in the video description. I also review individual books on my Patreon site - good, bad and indifferent.

[@Asavent]

Looking for the magnets used to hold corners. Could not find on amazon.

[@DASBookbinding]

Amazon is the worst place to look for quality bookbinding tools:) Those magnets come from store.ibookbinding.com/collections/tools-for-boxmaking

[@alvaromarcoperes8273]

1:54 😂😂😂

[@danielwalter4615]

Japanese washi paper doesn't have a grain direction

[@Tinalles]

Yeah. More generally, handmade paper tends not to have a grain direction. The grain property is largely a side effect of mechanical production methods.

[@DASBookbinding]

That's an interesting observation. I did make the constraint of machine made materials. Traditionally washi has been fine handmade paper limited to the use of the bast fibre of about 4 plants. Today you will also find better paper called washi that can include wood fibre and be machine made. These paper definitely have a grain direction and they are common - more common than handmade paper. But let's look at handmade paper - and this goes for western paper too. The vat person will scoop up pulp with the mould and shake the mould back and forth and side to side. They do it the same every time. But there is nearly always more one direction than the other. There will be some preferential fibre direction. The result is fibre going in all directions, but with a bias towards parallel to the sides of the sheet, and one direction will have more than the other. When it is used it can stretches in both directions with moisture. When working with handmade paper I think it is better to think of it as having 2 grain directions and to determine if one is stronger than the other. If there is a stronger direction, this is treated as the direction you would use for machine made paper. But you can't forget about the other. The place it tricks many people up is for endpapers. If the pastedown is handmade paper it can stretch vertically and be visible outside the edge of the text block, and can potentially warp the boards. You can still use it, but consideration for how to deal with this is needed. I learnt this the hard way many years ago when binding my first competition binding.