Serious question, my old boss swore by PVA glue for everything, but a friend said animal glue is better for repairs

My first boss at a small bindery in Austin told me to always use PVA glue for any repair job, saying it was strong and easy. I followed that for years. Then a friend who does restoration work said for old book repairs, animal glue is actually better because it's reversible and doesn't damage the paper over time. I tried it on a 1920s novel last month, and the difference was clear. The animal glue held well but came off clean when I needed to adjust a hinge. So now I'm rethinking a lot of what I was taught. For those of you doing repair work, which glue do you actually reach for first?

2 comments

2 Comments

miles7981mo ago

That old boss advice is really common in shops focused on speed and cost. The thing a lot of people miss is the paper type. Modern wood pulp paper and old cotton rag paper react totally different to glues over decades. PVA can make new paper stiff and brittle as it ages, which is fine for a cheap paperback. But that same stiffness will crack and tear fragile old pages. Animal glue stays a bit flexible, which is why it works for the old stuff. It's not about which glue is stronger right now, it's about which one lets the book move and breathe for another hundred years.

charles_price1mo ago

My first restoration teacher in Chicago made us use rabbit skin glue for a whole semester. It felt like a hassle then, but now I get why she was so strict about it. The long term flexibility is the whole point for anything printed before 1950.