Vent: Heard a customer tell my boss that machine stitched books are more durable than hand stitched ones

Got me thinking though, is that actually true for a daily driver book like a journal versus a display piece, or is it just a myth passed around by people who never had a hand sewn binding fall apart on them after 5 years of heavy use?

3 comments

3 Comments

hannah4004d ago

Didn't someone on a bookbinding forum test this and find machine stitching actually weaker?

the_lee4d agoMost Upvoted

Yeah I think I remember that test. They stitched some pages by hand and by machine then tried to pull them apart. The machine stitching was more consistent but when it did fail it failed harder because all the tension was uniform across every stitch. Hand stitching has that slight give, each loop is a little different so the stress spreads out better. So yeah you might get more broken pages with a machine if the thread isn't up to snuff.

wood.faith3d ago

Yeah but nobody talks about how the sewing frame tension changes everything more than the stitch type.