Switched to wheat paste for cloth covers and the difference is night and day

Used to use standard PVA glue for bookcloth on a repair job for a 1920s novel last month. The edges kept curling up and the cloth felt stiff as a board. Tried a batch of wheat paste on a similar spine repair this week, and the fabric laid down flat like butter. Anyone else find wheat paste works better for older, delicate books or am I just finally getting the hang of it?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_sean22d ago

Oh man, you hit on something I've been yelling about for years. The real game changer with wheat paste isn't just that it's reversible for old books, it's that the drying time gives you way more control over the cloth. With PVA, once it touches the spine you're pretty much committed. Wheat paste lets you shift and adjust the fabric for a solid minute or two before it sets. That alone makes it worth the extra prep time for any pre-1950s binding.

lucas_johnson22d ago

Man I learned that lesson the hard way back in college when I glued a whole section of a 1920s novel into a zigzag because I panicked with PVA. Still find myself making wheat paste from scratch for anything older than 1950 now like some kind of glue nerd.