URGENT HELP PLEASE: How are cloth joints made?

[rabskers]

Can anyone tell me or point me to a good tutorial on how to make a cloth joint - I am trying to bind a large landscape book and need to learn how to insert a cloth joint for extra strength. Is the cloth joint sewn in, tipped in, made up with the endpapers . . . I haven't a clue and really need to know how to do this rather quickly as I am trying to do this book as a present for an artist friend's birthday . . . . any help would be greatly appreciated - thanks, Rabskers

[bookbum]

The cloth joint, visible or not, starts out as part of the text block.

Assuming you have a tight clean text block, a piece of linen (the most book friendly type cloth) is glued to the spine of the text block and then sew to it. when the casing is applied, the cloth is attached to the inside of the boards. Endpapers are then applied so as to leave the joint cloth exposed.

If the text block needs to be resewn, it is cleaner and stronger to use two pieces of linen and sew each into the text block as you resew the text block itself. Their normal positions are between the first and second signatures and between the last and next-to-last signatures. The book is then reassembled as mentioned above.

[rabskers]

Hi dan - I have also been advised to hook and tip the cloth joint to the first and last section of the book and sew in as usual and then to bring the cloth over onto the inside board to form a visible joint - I have been tod this is a good method to maintain strength the the parts of the book that'll take most of the strain . . . is this something that is good advice or not?