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Coptic stitch vs perfect binding for a 300 page sketchbook, one held up way better
I bound two copies of a 300 page sketchbook last month, one with a Coptic stitch and one with perfect binding, and the perfect bound one cracked at the spine after two days of my kid flipping through it. The Coptic one took me about 4 hours in my garage in Ann Arbor but it lays totally flat and the pages never pulled loose. The big thing was sewing each signature with waxed linen thread instead of just gluing the block, way more work but the flex is night and day. Has anyone found a glue that actually keeps a perfect bound book from cracking when it gets opened wide?
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the_joel16d ago
Are you sure it was actually the glue that failed on your perfect bound copy? The way I learned it, a perfect bound book is never meant to open flat in the first place, so cracking at the spine when you force it wide is kind of the design giving out, not the glue letting go. The glued edge is only holding the pages along one thin strip, which is why those books always fight you when you try to lay them open. Coptic works because the thread goes all the way through each signature and ties the whole block together, so the flex comes from the sewing, not the adhesive. No glue on its own is going to fix a binding style that was built to stay shut. If you want a perfect bound book to survive a kid flipping it, you would need to change how the spine is built, not just switch to a better glue.
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tara_mitchell16d ago
Yep, @the_joel nailed it, my kid's perfect bound books always split right at the spine no matter what glue they used. That's just how those things are built, the pages only hang on by that one skinny glued edge.
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