If there's a golden rule of bookbinding, it's the grain must run head to tail.
It's paper, board and cloth.
The easiest test for the grain direction is the fold test.
The direction that a piece of paper folds the easiest is the grain direction.
This works really well for light paper, such as this copy paper.
The next easiest test is the tear test.
Of course, this test is destructive.
Clearly, the paper tears much easier and straighter in the grain direction.
Another good test is to moisten the corner of a piece of paper.
The fibers expanding perpendicular to the grain will cause that direction to cockle, whereas the direction parallel to
the grain will stay straight.
Another little test is to cut little strips off the corner and then to wet one side on each strip.
The strip that runs perpendicular to the grain will curl over, whereas the strip running parallel will stay straight.
Most modern copy paper is long grain.
That means the grain direction is in the direction of the long axis.
That's great for copiers, but it's no good for book binding.
That means if you fold the pages into sections, the grain direction's now wrong.
However, if you look hard enough, it is possible to find short grain copy paper which is suitable for book binding.
This hand marbled paper as a little bit difficult to work out the grain direction.
With a few tries, it's possible to work out that this piece is short grained.
This magazine page isn't obvious.
It should be long grain.
But it's looking like it's short grain.
I'm going to give it the tear test just to make sure.
That's not very straight.
Definitely short grain.
This marble paper has been rolled up for some time.
That makes the fold test more difficult.
With enough tries, it's possible to work it out.
This manila card was fairly obvious from the fold test.
However, I thought it'd be interesting to see how the tear test would go.
Turns out the tear tests are almost useless for this piece in manila card.
Luckily, the fold test worked.
This decorated paper's a handmade paper - you can see the deckle edge on the back.
Most handmade paper doesn't have an obvious grain direction .
Handmade paper usually has a weak grain direction.
Luckily with this paper, the grain direction is such that the mustaches are horizontal.
This piece of craft paper was a little bit hard to tell with the fold test.
I was pretty sure it was short grain.
But I went ahead with the corner test, and I still wasn't totally convinced, though, looking at the video now, it's
pretty obvious.
But I went ahead, with cutting a couple of strips off the corner, which sealed the deal.
Board can sometimes be a bit difficult to read, but it's especially important that you get the board grain direction
right.
The only real way to tell the grain direction in cloth is to have the edge because the grain direction is parallel to the
selvedge. So the grain runs into the roll of cloth.
Here's an example of using grain direction to advantage.
I've pasted a piece of bank paper to the inside of this board to cause it to warp in on purpose.
When it gets covered with leather later, the leather will pull this board out flat.
The boards on this book are short grained and it's caused the boards to warp slightly from head to tail, and that's
caused the inner joint to fail.
The pages are also short grained, and they really don't turn nicely.
Overall, this book, structurally, isn't very good.
This book is about the same age, and the grain direction is head to tail in the board and the pages.
And the result is the book's in fantastic condition, and the pages turn beautifully.