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Rant: dropped $85 on a 'starter' sewing frame for my first book, should've just built one
Used it twice on a coptic binding and the uprights wobbled so bad my signatures went crooked, meanwhile my buddy's $12 pine frame from Home Depot has held up for 3 years of binding, so has anyone else gotten burned by pre-made frames or is it just me?
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black.margaret4d ago
My dad built frames for years out of scrap 2x4s and a couple of bolts, and the trick was he never glued the joints, he just drilled them so the uprights could be shimmed with a folded business card when they started to slip. A $12 pine frame beats an $85 "starter" kit any day because the wood is thick and the hardware is simple, nothing to strip out. Once you go that route you can also size it to whatever you're binding instead of squeezing a big book onto a frame built for a small one. The pre-made ones cut corners on the exact part that matters, which is the part holding the signatures steady while you sew.
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