A member was asked to put a hard cover on this recent purchase of a heavy paperback, approximately 50mm thick. The result is shown in the left hand book in the picture here. For comparison, a publisher's hardcover version is also shown in the picture, on the right.
The paperback had a heavy layer of hot melt glue on the spine. When the cover was removed, a layer of gauze was placed over the spine and then worked into the glue with a hot iron. This was to strengthen the spine. A hard cover was made, utilising the paper cover, and then the book cased in.
The only problem is that this new book does not open very flat, as can be seen in the photos below. Whilst this is a very robust covering, there are two minor changes that could be made that would improve it.
1: Remove all the hot melt glue and replace it with a good quality, flexible PVA. This can take some time to achieve, as the glue can be quite thick and very tenacious.
This first image shows the spine of the hardcover version that is bent into a U shape. This allows big books such as this one to lie flat.
2: The next photo shows the recovered paperback, with its hard spine. This is clearly stopping the book from lying flat.
To prevent this from occurring, use a leather or cloth spine, without the hard card backing. This is normally only a problem in bigger books, such as this one.
Although these sound like small changes, they can have a big impact on the way the book works. In some ways the photo of the paperback does not do justice to the difficulty in getting it to lie flat. However, it can clearly be seen that the spine of the cover is preventing the front and back covers from moving closer together, and therefore preventing the spine of the book from curving upwards in the centre.