Loading…
19
Tried PVA glue versus wheat paste on the same old book, and the winner was not close
Last spring a neighbor brought me a 1912 family Bible with a spine that had cracked clean off. I did the repair twice, once on a scrap signature with PVA and once with cooked wheat paste, so I could compare them side by side in my shop in Tucson. The PVA dried fast and felt stiff, and when I flexed the test hinge it cracked at the joint within two days. The wheat paste stayed flexible for a week, and the hinge opened flat without any popping sound. Wheat paste also gave me about 10 extra minutes to line up the signatures, which mattered a lot on a book with uneven pages. The only downside is the wait, since it needs to dry under weight for a full day before you touch it. Has anyone found a paste recipe that sets a little faster without going brittle?
0 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In0 Comments
No comments yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this discussion.