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Recalled my old bookbinding teacher's advice about glue and finally see the point
Back in 2019, my teacher in Portland told me never to use PVA glue for book spines because it dries too brittle and cracks over time. I thought she was just being old school and stuck to my cheap white glue for two years. Then last month I opened a journal I made in 2020 and the spine had a hairline crack running down the middle. I switched to a high-quality PVA that she recommended, the pH neutral kind from Lineco, and glued up a test book six weeks ago. So far no issues, and the flexibility is way better. Has anyone else had a teacher's tip turn out to be right after you brushed it off?
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lily_sullivan824mo ago
Actually wait, your teacher might have been talking about regular school PVA which is definitely brittle. The Lineco stuff is a different beast, it's a modified PVA that stays flexible even after curing. I made that same mistake with a cheap Elmer's type glue on my first few repairs and watched them crack within a year. But the pH neutral PVA from Lineco is actually what most professional binders use now. Have you tested it on a spine that gets opened a lot yet?
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the_sage4mo ago
Saw a conservator on YouTube say the same thing about Lineco vs regular PVA, they tested a bunch of glues and the cheap stuff lost like 40% of its flexibility after a year. Glad yours is holding up so far.
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