Still not sold on the whole 'use PVA for everything' trend I see in groups

I was helping a friend rebind a 1950s cookbook last month and everyone online said to just reach for the PVA glue. But that old paper is so brittle and PVA just sits on top without soaking in... I ended up using a wheat paste mix like the old binders did and the pages laid flat perfectly. Why are we acting like one glue works for every single book and paper type?

2 comments

2 Comments

kevin21811d ago

Oh I gotta push back on this. PVA is actually way more forgiving than people give it credit for if you just thin it down with a little water. Thick PVA straight from the bottle is where beginners mess up, but a 50/50 mix with water soaks into brittle paper way better than wheat paste ever will. Your cookbook pages might lay flat now, but give it a year and see how that wheat paste holds up to humidity compared to a good archival PVA.

riley_coleman811d ago

Has anyone else had to secretly re-glue their own book projects because they felt like a glue rebel? I once tried PVA on a vintage paperback and the pages crinkled up like my grandma's perm.