While building all my models, I always do a first pass at edging before I start glueing. This allows catching all of those nasty white edges that are almost impossible to get after things are glued together. Then, after everything is assembled, I'll make another edging pass to get the crease edges and anything else that needs it.

One of the most important things I do BEFORE glueing is to run a line of color along all of the white glue tabs so that any misallignment that would result in a white line showing won't show.

My request: Could you make the glue tabs colored instead of white so that edging step isn't needed? They don't need to be the exact color as the exposed textures [and in fact would be better if they weren't identical so you could still see where the tab is during assembly].

Joe

Actually, the glue tabs are white due to other requests by various customers...particularly, those who do not want to waste ink on areas that will not be visible. A desire to conserve ink has, in this particular case, won out over the edging issue, but I'm glad you've put your $.02 in on this. Perhaps they'll look at going the other route if a lot of other people feel the same.

I understand...I can see how coloring all the glue tabs might consume some extra ink and cause some concern.

Here's a possible compromise to consider -- it's really only about 1/16" stripe right next to the fold that needs to be edged. Maybe that little extra ink would be considered worthwhile as it would likely show at the crack. Just a thought.

In any case, I'll just keep edging the tabs by hand. [Although I MUST find some non-watersoluable markers for that to get stop the glue-caused running and bleeding. My newest set of markers is horrible in that regard.]

Thanks,
Joe

Marker/felt pen ink is cheaper than printer ink, and printer ink needs to be conserved. So I personally prefer white tabs to colored tabs. I don't mind edging the tabs myself, and I generally do that before cutting out stuff since it's faster that way.

-Mel

I'm one of those guys who actually splits the top surface of the paper with his blade when scoring. One way or another this leaves a nasty white crease exposed. Edging is the only solution in my case. The other problem with a full color tab is that the ink can interfere with a solid glue bond.

So I'm assuming you're using a blunt edge to do your scoring? If that’s the case then I can understand the request for a colored seam. If there are enough requests for it then it's something I might consider.

For scoring I use one of two tools: a the ground smooth-and-rounded back of an old blunted x-acto blade, or more recently, the back of a small crochet hook (works good but I need to figure out a better handle for it). In both cases, I've gotten pretty good about scoring without breaking paper.

The REAL motivation for this suggestion is that I've been using pens to color the tabs, but most of the markers I've found [with enough colors to be useful] have turned out to be soluable by the glue -- so I occasionally getting color running from the predged joint onto the printed surfaces.

Sorry guys, I didn't mean to open up a can of worms here. I apologize for bringing up what is apparently a sensitive subject that has been previously discussed. I will now drop it entirely and go back to my markers.

How about a compromise... leave the main body of the tab white, but have a dark band at the seam? The extra ink required would be negligible. The only problem I can see is that you'd have to mark where the exact tab boundary is.