hello in this video I want to go over some tips on how to prevent warping in your bookbinding projects this is a common problem you might notice after gluing your book altogether because the moisture from the glue can be absorbed on the cover board and you might get a boat cover or the pages can absorb the moisture and you end up with wrinkly pages first thing I want to address is the grain any paper material you use will have a grain to it which is the direction that the fibers are going if you look closely sometimes you can see it and when you fold a paper in half the direction that the paper folds the easiest is the direction of the grain it's also apparent when you have warping and your paper or board if the paper is like bowing this way the grain is going that way but if it's going this way then the grain is going that way in professional bookbinding the grain is always going in the direction of the spine this is an example of all the grain going all the same way the spine is vertical the grain in the cover is vertical and the grain in the paper is vertical so the whole book has no warping which is ideal this is actually hard to achieve if you make books by hand because access to paper with the grain going all the same way and the size you want is hard to find I was able to achieve it in this book because it's a small size and the paper was eight and a half by eleven so I could cut it in half making the grain in the direction that I wanted it to go but I had to sacrifice the size this example is a book that is made with the grain going in the opposite directions if you get a look in here so if you look at this book the cover is actually the grain that is going in the opposite direction the grain is going this way and it should be going this way to prevent warping it's actually so small of a detail that it doesn't bother me but the book is still functional it can really be up to personal preference if you want to take the time to find all your paper materials going in the same gray in direction I'd say go for it but if that's really hard to find and you're limited to the paper you have access to this might be something you have to sacrifice an overlook another thing you want to consider is the climate you live in I basically live in the desert things dry really fast here and I use that to my advantage because there's less moisture in the air so glue dries faster which leads to less warping if you live in a humid climate this is a little more difficult because things will take longer to dry and it can especially be bad if you use too much glue because then your papers just have an overload of moisture which leads to a bunch of wrinkles and warping one thing you can try when your book is pressed and you're waiting for it to dry you can make the glue dry faster by putting a fan on it or you can try a hair dryer on low heat that leads me to my next tip which is to always have your book pressed while it's drying you can make your own book press and I made a tutorial for that right here that's what I use on my book projects but you don't always have to have a fancy book press or have your own you can get away with placing like heavy books or gallons of water on top of your project just enough weight so that it's pushed down and it's going to dry flat the amount of time that you leave your book in your press can also depend on the climate you're in if there's a lot of humidity you want to leave it in there for a while just to be safe that the book is drying flat I usually leave mine in the book press overnight which is at least eight hours and that's just to make sure that I have a peace of mind that it had a lot of time to dry flat an extra step you can do to prevent warping is to sandwich wax paper or a regular thick piece of paper between your glued areas while your book is being pressed to dry so let's say you just glued a cover and you don't want the moisture from that glue to absorb into the pages making them wrinkly just put one of those materials in between the cover and the pages the wax paper actually creates a barrier so the moisture won't go through the wax paper onto your pages just keeps it into the cover and then dries flat using a thick piece of paper on the other hand will act as an absorber so it will absorb the moisture from either sides and when you leave that book to dry when you open it after everything is all dry you'll actually find that piece of paper has absorbed the moisture because it's all wrinkly and that's a good thing because it got absorbed in that paper and not in your book and then you can just toss that paper out another thing you can try is using an extra strength glue stick rather than liquid glue and the advantage to this is that there is a lot less moisture in this glue but the disadvantage is that it dries faster so if you have a large book binding project the liquid glue is probably better because it can cover a lot more surface and it won't dry on you while you're working on it I'll put a link to the one that I like using down below and you can actually see how I used it on a book project by clicking on this video right here which will also be in the description below if your book is already dry and let's say you have some warping another thing you can try if you are really desperate is ironing that area it doesn't always work but sometimes it has worked on my projects ironing on it on a low to medium setting will relax the fibers and then you can put it back into press or put a bunch of weight on it and it makes the fibers lay flat again hopefully you guys found this helpful these are just some things that have helped me in my experience in making my own books if you have any tips on how to prevent warping that have worked for you go ahead and leave them in the comments below I love when these tip videos become a sort of resource for anyone who is looking for help so your comments do matter and go ahead and leave your experiences in the comments below because it might benefit and help someone else for more book binding tips and videos on supplies or substitutes check out this playlist here if you want to learn how to make the book that I featured in this video check out the video to the right and be sure to subscribe to my channel for more videos on DIY and book you can also find these links in the description below and let me know if there are any other tips that you guys want to know about in the comments below I'll see you next time you