amy974•22d ago

Used PVA glue on a leather spine for 5 years before someone told me

I was at the bindery swap in Dayton last month and a woman watched me glue up a spine with PVA and just said, that's going to crack in a year. Turns out I should have been using a flexible glue like wheat paste or a mix for leather because PVA dries hard and stiff. I went home and checked 3 books I bound back in 2019 for a friend's shop and every single spine had hairline cracks near the hinges. So now I'm redoing all of them and it's slow going. Has anyone else switched from straight PVA to a paste mix for leather and did the cracking stop?

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kaih3619d ago

I've been mixing in a little methyl cellulose with the PVA instead of going full paste, mostly because straight wheat paste gets moldy in my basement shop during summer. Also check if your books are in a spot with big temp swings, that alone can crack a stiff spine even if the glue is fine.

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