Bookcloth & covering yardage
Buying bookcloth by the roll starts with one question: how much of it do N books eat? The answer is the case's cloth cut — from the same arithmetic as the case calculator, so the two cannot disagree — laid against the roll's width with grain running the case height and a kerf allowance per cut. Metres per book, books per metre, metres for the run.
- Cut per book
- 362 × 251 mmat 2.5 mm board, 3 mm squares, standard turn-ins
- Lies on the roll
- along the lengthgrain runs the case height, as it should
- Roll per book
- 251 mm + kerf3 mm of cutting waste per book, already counted
- Books per metre
- 3whole books — the fraction of a book is nobody's
Decorative paper instead of cloth: a sheet covers one case when it is at least the cut size — an A2 sheet covers an A5 case twice over, an A1 sheet four times. Buy one sheet spare for the first attempt; there is always a first attempt.
Grain decides the direction
Cloth grain runs the case's height — the direction the case flexes — so the cut lies along the roll's length whenever the roll is wide enough to carry the case's width. A roll narrower than the cut forces the cloth across the grain, and cross-grain cloth cracks at the joints within a few years. The calculator says which situation you are in, not just the number.
| Covering | Buy it as | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Bookcloth | Rolls 500–1400 mm wide | Linen-backed cloth (the good kind) has a definite grain — mark it before cutting anything. |
| Decorative paper | Sheets (A2, 500 × 700, 19 × 25 in) | One sheet covers an A5 case twice over; buy one spare for the first attempt. |
| Full leather / bonded | Skins, measured in square feet | A skin's usable area avoids the neck and flanks — figure 70% of the quoted area, then weigh your expectations. |
Whatever the covering, the cut is the same: case size plus turn-ins, from the case calculator's arithmetic.
Questions people actually ask
Why a kerf at all?
Rotary cutters and shears remove a few millimetres per cut, and cloth relaxes after cutting. 3 mm per book is the realistic waste; ignoring it is how a run of ten becomes a run of nine and a scrape.
How much extra should I buy?
One book's worth for a first case in a new cloth, 5–10% for a run. Cloth batches vary in colour between dye lots — a matching problem no calculator can arithmetic its way out of.
Does this work for paper-covered quarter bindings?
Yes — treat the paper as the covering for the boards it covers and the cloth as the spine's. Two cuts, same arithmetic, and the spine cloth's grain matters most of all.
Metric or imperial rolls?
Both — roll widths are dropdowns in the common sizes. The cut dimensions are millimetres throughout; an inch is 25.4 of them and the roll you buy says which it means.
Cloth, boards, endpapers — or a book someone else binds beautifully.
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