Book Board
Laminated grey board, 1.5 to 3 mm thick, cut to make the covers of a hardback.
| Thickness | 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0 mm |
| Composition | Laminated recycled paper fibre |
| Density | Approximately 0.72 g/cm³ |
| Surface | Matt, slightly rough, one side smoother |
| Grain | None; board is dimensionally stable in both directions |
| Cutting | Knife, board shear, or guillotine |
| pH | Neutral to slightly alkaline |
| Standard sheets | 700 × 1000 mm |
| Thickness | 1.5–3.0 mm |
| Density | 0.72 g/cm³ |
| Grain | None |
| Processes | Case making, box making, board cutting |
| Compatible materials | PVA, starch paste, cloth, leather, paper |
| Squareness tolerance | ± 0.3 mm on a 200 mm edge is achievable by hand |
| Cutting method | Board shear for straight work, knife and straightedge for small jobs |
| Warping | Boards must be pasted on both sides or the cover will cup |
There is a simulator for this. Paper Grain Visualizer runs the same relationships in 3D, so you can change a number and watch what it does to the result.
Book board is a dense, laminated board made from recycled fibre. It is not intended to be pretty — it is the armature that the covering material is wrapped around. What matters is that it is dimensionally stable, flat, and cuts with a clean edge.
The standard thicknesses are 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 mm. A small octavo takes 2.0 mm; a large folio needs 2.5 to 3.0 mm to stop the covers bowing. Cutting the board is the one job in binding that must be accurate to a fraction of a millimetre, because every error is multiplied by the square of the book.
Safety
Using it well
- Always paste both sides of a board, even if one side is covered by the endpaper. A board pasted on one side only will cup within a day.
- Cut the boards a fraction oversize and trim after the case is made. A case is easier to square by trimming than by cutting to a line.
- Store board flat, weighted, in a dry room. Board that has taken up moisture will not cut square and will not lie flat in a case.
What it works with
Papers and substrates
- Endpapers, cover papers, cloth, leather
Type and fonts
- Not applicable
Processes
- Case making
- Box making
- Board cutting
- Lining
Tools that go with the book board
Endpapers
The folded sheet that joins the text block to the cover, and hides the join.
Bookbinding Glue
PVA for strength, starch paste for reversibility, and the mix that does both.
Book Press
A screw press that holds a text block flat under pressure while the glue dries.