For our rest and relaxation, my fiancee and I spend long hours in thrift stores. She likes the clothes; I like the books. One benefit for my work as a commercial printing broker is that I see how print books age. I see the yellowed paper in the books from the ‘70s and ‘80s and the pristine paper and binding work in books close to 100 years old (i.e., due to their superior materials).
I also see how various bindings hold up: which books are still in good condition twenty years after their publishing date and which books are losing pages.
Three Current Print Brokering Jobs
Three of my current print brokering clients are producing books at the moment. One is entirely case bound (all copies). One is a short-run job: 500 copies of a 488-page paperback book. The final product is a split binding of a 550-page book (2,000 to 10,000 copies paper bound and 1,000 copies case bound). For the most part, all are close to 8.5” x 11” in format. What they all have in common is that their page counts are high. They are all long books.
How does this affect the binding?
Two ways to approach the binding of either a perfect-bound (paperback) or case-bound (hard-cover) book are notch binding (or a similar option that is called burst perfect binding) and Smyth Sewing. With notch and burst binding, you first gather and stack the press signatures (lets say thirty-two 16-page press signatures for a 512-page print book, or sixteen 32-page signatures for the same page count).
Then, if you’re perfect-binding the book you grind off the bind edge, add hot-melt glue to the ground-off spine, and wrap a paper cover around the text block. For a burst-bound job you puncture the signature folds, and for a notch-bound job, you cut notches in the bind edge, apply the glue, and add the paper cover.
In these cases (which are best used for paper-bound books but can also be used for hard-bound books), grinding, piercing, or notching the bind edge before applying the glue just gives the glue more surface area of the paper to grab onto. More surface area allows for better glue adhesion and less likelihood that the pages will fall out.
Unfortunately, all of these print books are very long, as noted before, so the text blocks are heavy, and neither burst binding nor notch binding is as durable as one of the more traditional methods for case binding books: that is, Smyth Sewing.
Enter Smyth Sewing
If you open a case-bound children’s book, you will see a little thread running down the gutter of the book, in and out. You will also see the thread running down the center of a large-format art book at a museum, or a library book, or any other book that costs a lot and is intended to last for decades. Smyth Sewing is a durable way to make sure the pages don’t fall out.
The way Smyth Sewing works is that the stitches run the length of the fold (the folded side of the press signature), and then additional stitches sew together the separate signatures that comprise the entire book. Then the text block bind edge is covered with glue, attached to a liner (called a “crash”) and either set into the case side (i.e., suspended from binder’s boards wrapped with binding cloth and paper) for case binding or wrapped with a paper cover (for perfect binding).
What makes this stronger than notch binding or burst binding is that in addition to the glue seeping into the ground-off or notched bind edge of the gathered press signatures, you have the added holding power of the binding thread.
When the books have been opened and closed hundreds or multiple hundreds of times and they wind up in the thrift stores my fiancee and I frequent, the print books may be banged up a bit, but the pages are still attached firmly into the binding.
Things to Remember
Here are some things to keep in mind when you consider whether to pay extra for Smyth Sewing:
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- Two of the three books I’m brokering have close to 500 pages of text. That’s a big, heavy text block. I’m encouraging my clients to choose Smyth Sewing because these books are prime candidates for lost pages. When designing your print books, consider how many pages they will be, how long they must last, and whether they will receive a lot of heavy use. For instance, art books, cookbooks, children’s books, and yearbooks would be prime candidates for Smyth Sewing.
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- Remember that Smyth Sewing can be done with both paperbound and hard-cover books. This is especially useful for split bindings. You can save money by preparing all text blocks the same (for the most part) and then adding paper covers or hard covers as needed.
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- Not all commercial printing suppliers, or even all book printers, have Smyth Sewing capabilities. In fact, many printers need to subcontract out all perfect binding and case binding. If you find a dedicated book printer, he will often have in-house perfect binding. If he has in-house case binding that’s even better. If he has in-house Smyth Sewing, that’s best of all. If you think you might need these services, ask if your vendor has the equipment in-house. (One vendor I’m seriously considering for the three jobs mentioned above has all of these capabilities. Therefore, Smyth Sewing the entire job will only cost about $300 extra. I can’t imagine the additional cost–and extra time–for Smyth Sewing if I chose a printer who had to subcontract the work.)
- Remember to ask your book printer for samples of printed, bound books (including Smyth Sewn books). You can see how well your printer does this kind of work, and you can show him exactly what you need.
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on Friday, April 14th, 2017 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Book Binding.
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