Paid $90 for a finishing press, thought it was a scam until Friday

I bought one of those small cast iron finishing presses off eBay last month, figured it was just a fancy paperweight. Then I tried rounding the spine on a 400 page textblock and the difference was night and day. My old method with boards and clamps left creases all over the covers. Anyone else find that a proper press fixes more than just the binding step?

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the_lee7d ago

...and honestly that reminds me of the time I messed up a whole batch of journals because I thought I could just skip the pressing step entirely. I had like 8 of them stacked under a bunch of heavy books for two days and the spines came out all wavy, plus the covers warped at the corners. I even tried steaming one to fix it, which just made the paper crinkle. So yeah, I get why you'd think it's a gimmick at first, but once you actually feel how even the pressure is, it's hard to go back. My only regret is I didn't buy one sooner, but I did save a ton of money by getting a used one with a few rust spots that cleaned up fine.