Successful drying is necessary and vital ~ mistakes can cause irrevocable damage after weeks of hard work.
The first important requirement ~ and most ~ difficult ~ is patience. Drying-out takes time.
When the quotation for a job is 'about ten weeks' a professional bookbinder is being neither busy ~ nor a professional procrastinator. The job does take that long to dry ~ not just once ~ but a week every now and then as work progresses. Around the workshop there are piles of books, carefully stacked between pressing boards [115045]. Amateur bookcrafters will find it hard to wait ~ wait ~ wait. They will want to see their results ~ quickly. Do not even be tempted to open your book and admire it until it is dry ~ moistened hinges can easily split open.
Working on wet paper can be disastrous. Hence the need for drying out. If it haws to be shaped or cut ~ use scissors. A knife~ however sharp ~ will tear the paper.
End papers will take a week to dry out. Becasue they are 'with the grain' they have are likely to tear if pushed once the slippage time has ended ~ or before they are dry. Poking after drying will have no result. Moral ~ get it right first time ~ then leave it alone ~ for days ~ to dry.
Wet hinges may break on early inspection. It is tempting to do some smoothing out on damp paper. If the adhesive is still setting ~ as paste is likely to be ~ then you will have plenty of paste left to patch-up the tears you make ~ (Ho! Ho!).
Learning these things by experience is hard and time consuming. And it is almost an essential part of the bookbinder's training. Why else would an apprenticeship last five years? The time is either spent waiting for dryng ~ or rectifiying expensive mistakes in pushing papers while they are wet.
Beware of printed newspaperChip paper is used for pasting [116026] ~ rubbing down [116031] ~ absorbing [116042] ~ tipping-in [123913].
Examples of drying going wrong [124341]