It was only five years ago that we produced our first “exposed smyth sewn book!” Since then the style has become more common. Basically, this style of binding is very same as smyth sewn hard cover/hard back books except…the “sewn spine” is not covered! The first picture is an “exposed smyth sewn book” with only a limp or flexible cover, front and back. Picture #2 and #3 have a board wrapped cover. When we produce these books, we apply white liquid glue to the spine to hold the sewn sections together more tightly. Picture #4 is the same style of binding, except we have added food coloring to the glue, in this case blue, so the spine is solid blue. If you look carefully you can see the thread lines on the spine. We have several different colours of thread. You can see in picture #3 that the thread is black. Picture #5 is a very thin book with a flexible cover.
