Switched from PVA to wheat paste for my cloth bindings. Regretted it for two days until I saw the difference.

I always used PVA for everything because it's fast and easy. But a guy at the Austin book arts fair told me wheat paste gives a way cleaner finish on book cloth, especially with really thin materials like mulberry. I tried it on a batch of six journals Wednesday. First few hours I was cursing because the paste is watery and the cloth kept shifting. But after they dried overnight, the spines are flatter with zero wrinkles. PVA would have bubbled up on those thin covers for sure. Anyone else bother with wheat paste or am I just making extra work?

1 comments

1 Comment

john_johnson7534m ago

Huh, are you talking about wheat paste for cloth bindings specifically? I mean, I've tried it a couple times and honestly I just don't get the hype. Maybe it's me, but I found it way more trouble than it's worth. The shifting issue you mentioned drives me crazy, and I can never get the consistency right without it being too thin or too thick. Plus I feel like the paste can soak through some thinner cloths if you're not careful, and then you're stuck with a sticky mess. PVA's just more predictable for me, and I'd rather deal with a tiny bubble here and there than fight with paste all day. I dunno, maybe I'm just lazy, but wheat paste feels like extra work for something that looks basically the same to me.