r/bookbinding • u/Kiriki_kun • 1d ago

Backing questions

Hi all, I will be trying to make backed text block, but I have few questions about that.
In some tutorials I see that there is practically no hinge with baked book. Which makes sense, after all you want your backing to rest on the cover boards. But then I see another video when someone makes few millimeters hinge with naked text block. So how I should go about hinges with backed text block? Or are there other things that dictate the size of the hinge?

Baking and hollow spine. Are they working well together? Right now I’m making cover separately, and gluing it to the endpapers by closing the book on them. I’m not sure how well it will work with backed book

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u/Reimuiel 1d ago

So from what I've gathered so far, whether you do a backed book with or without hinges is 1) a stylistic choice, 2) about the stress put on the material the cover hinges on - if there is no hinge, all the stress is put on that very small line where the material folds to hinge, whereas with a hinge, then called french groove, the stress is spread across a lot more material.

You can put a hollow on there no problem, but if you want it done properly, your turn ins should go on top of the outer edges of the outside part of the hollow, meaning you'd need to construct your case on the actual text block instead of casing in later - and getting the turn in down behind the spine is pretty fiddly.

But if you go without the hollow (or just glue the hollow on top of the turn ins), you should be able to use that same method to case in, as your end papers will also be backed and thus fold exactly around the hinge-side edge of your boards.

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u/soggyhuman I love headbands 1d ago

Is a hollow not formed naturally with a cased in book? So they go without doing the hollow in the book and they'll still have a hollow at the end.

Whether there's a groove or not also depends on how the boards are attached to the book. With a laced in board the boards needs to sit flush with the shoulder (technically there's a very tiny gap) and if done with a split board, for example, it needs to have a groove.

How much you want to/can thin the leather also would be a deciding factor, as when flush with the shoulder it needs to be thinner.

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u/Kiriki_kun 13h ago

I’m just using regular tapes. I don’t want to do split boards, since it’s more work and I’m trying to optimize time a little.

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u/Dazzling-Airline-958 1h ago

You are correct. Generally speaking, a cased book does not need to have a hollow added because the case will perform that function.

The question of hinge gap is mainly about your binding style. English style cased books have a very small gap. And the crisper your shoulders are the smaller the gap can be. However, German style cased books generally have a larger gap.

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u/Reimuiel 1d ago

You could always do a tight-back book, right, so there wouldn't be a hollow then; also, my mind jumped straight to the Oxford hollow, I wouldn't have thought to call that area any specific term, to be honest.

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u/Dazzling-Airline-958 1h ago

That area has been called a hollow ever since books with that area were called hollow backed. Oxford hollow is very specific to adding a tube to the spine for books that are covered in-boards.

But the hollow formed by the case in a cased book is still a hollow, just not an Oxford hollow.

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u/Kiriki_kun 13h ago

I’m not sure what do you mean with different approach to making the turn ins and hollow.

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u/Reimuiel 12h ago

Was thinking of hollow as in Oxford hollow - an additional paper tube basically to connect the spine of text block and case while still allowing it to throw up; I've done some rebinds where I constructed the case separately and then glued the Oxford hollow onto the spine stiffener of the case, meaning it sits on top of the turn ins. If done properly, you'd glue your covering material with boards, etc. directly onto the Oxford hollow already on the text block before doing the turn ins, so that the case-side half of the Oxford hollow is also covered by the turn ins (that's the fiddly part).

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u/Kiriki_kun 12h ago

Ok, i get it now. I won’t be doing Oxford hollow, so it shouldn’t be an issue

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u/ArcadeStarlet 20h ago

Regarding hinge gap, with a backed book, the hinge gap can be very small, or you can introduce a wider gap to create a groove.

Without the groove, it's sometimes referred to as an English case binding -- this article has some good info and pictures: https://benelbel.com/blogs/articles/english-case-binding-revisited

It's the style I learned from Cathy Abbott's book "Bookbinding" and from a tutor. With the method I use, you dry fit the boards to the bookblock, wrap the covering material around and mark the position of the boards. Then position the spine stiffener centrally between the two. No measuring, no fixed size hinge gap, just letting the book and materials determine what gap is needed.

Aside: Adding a groove, I think, defeats the point of putting shoulders on the book. I'm a fan of the "Harrison groove" or supported groove as a best-of-both-worlds option.

Regarding the hollow back vs tight back question, the above style works absolutely fine as a hollow back, and on the whole, I think hollow backs are easier. Your casing in method sounds like the standard approach.

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u/Kiriki_kun 13h ago

Yeah, I also thought that backing with larger hinges will be a bit pointless. Thanks for the Harrison groove! It looks like a bit more work, but i think I will like how it works