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DAE think cutting boards are actually worse than a good stack of scrap cardboard for pressing?
I know everyone and their uncle swears by those fancy maple pressing boards, but I had a thing happen about 6 months ago that really stuck with me. I was at a little bindery meetup in Portland, just a bunch of us in the back of a coffee shop on Alberta, and this older guy named Leonard was watching me glue up a text block. I pulled out my nice boards and he sort of snorted and said, 'Why are you fighting the wood? It doesn't breathe.' He then pulled out a stack of old cereal boxes and corrugated cardboard he'd cut to size, maybe 8 or 10 pieces, and showed me how he presses his books with those between the boards. He said the cardboard wicks away just enough moisture and gives a tiny bit of spring so the spine doesn't get that hard edge. I tried it on my next three books and honestly, the spines came out rounder and the paper didn't wrinkle near the gutter like it sometimes does with just boards. I'm not saying toss your boards, but I am saying that old cardboard has been working for him for 30 years and my results were better. Has anyone else tried just plain corrugated cardboard instead of buying special pressing planks?
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quinnperry12d ago
Cardboard is all I've used for years now, mostly old Amazon boxes I cut down. Something about the give in it just works better, my gutters stopped wrinkling once I switched. People look at me weird but the books don't lie.
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