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My rounded spine was backwards for 8 years until a customer pointed it out
I built hardcover books for almost a decade using a rounded spine because I thought the curve had to face outward toward the cover. Last spring, a retired bookbinder from Des Moines picked up one of my journals at a craft fair and said, “The hump goes inside the text block, not against the casing.” I stood there speechless while he opened the joint and showed me how the backing hammer shapes the swell so the spine sits convex on the inside. Every book I had sold had the curve punched the wrong way, which meant the covers never squared up over time and the pages kept pulling forward. I spent a whole weekend rebinding three sample copies to test his method, and the difference in how they lay flat was instant and obvious. How many of you learned a basic technique years into this craft from a total stranger, and did it sting as much as it did for me?
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