My cat just knocked over a bottle of wheat paste I mixed for a rebind, and I found out from a 1920s manual that some recipes originally called for adding a teaspoon of vinegar to prevent mold, which seems wild.

Has anyone else come across weird old-school additives in historic binding recipes?

3 comments

3 Comments

Wait, vinegar seems wild? I've seen way weirder stuff in old craft books, like adding egg whites or even a bit of whiskey lol.

jana_hernandez1mo ago

Remember that egg white trick for bookbinding? I tried it on some old photo albums that were falling apart. The pages got weirdly stiff and the smell was awful after a few weeks. Ended up just using plain white glue thinned with water, which worked way better and didn't attract bugs.

gonzalez.nancy2mo ago

Whiskey in a craft project? That's a new one for me. My grandma would have saved every drop for her coffee. Guess those old books were really just using whatever was around.