Spent 3 days fixing a spine that just needed more PVA, not that fancy wheat paste I tried

I was trying to do this gold tooled leather binding and the spine kept pulling away from the text block. Thought it was a humidity issue, then a pressing issue. Tried wheat paste like some old forum said and it just made a mess. Finally caved and used good old PVA and it set in like 20 minutes. Why do we overthink this stuff? Has anyone else had a project where the simple fix was staring you in the face for days?

2 comments

2 Comments

ryan_flores28d ago

Hold up... you used wheat paste for a spine? On leather? Man, that's wild. I did something similar once, tried wheat paste to attach a new spine piece on a 19th century novel and it just turned into this gooey mess that wouldn't dry right. Left it overnight and came back to the whole thing sliding apart. PVA's been my go to for years now and I don't know why I ever doubt it. Simple really is better sometimes.

ellis.felix28d ago

Yeah but I gotta push back a little here... wheat paste has its place, just not for that kind of stress point. I do a lot of recasing and PVA is king for spine repairs, no question, but wheat paste is way better for hinges and reattaching endpapers where you need more working time. I learned that the hard way too, tried using PVA for a delicate parchment repair and it just wrinkled everything up. Sometimes the "fancy" stuff is just for a different job.