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I swore by PVA glue for years until a rainy week in Portland changed my mind
I was rebinding a 1920s poetry collection for a client and the humidity made the PVA take forever to set... it was a mess. An older binder at the local shop, Maria, convinced me to try wheat paste for the spine lining. The flexibility it gave the text block was a total game changer for that old, brittle paper. Anyone else switch adhesives for specific projects like that?
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barnes.ivan27d ago
My buddy had a similar disaster with some vintage maps he was mounting. He used a basic craft glue that turned into a sticky mess overnight, just like @beth_kelly described with those postcards. The whole thing buckled and was ruined. He switched to a different paste for paper after that and won't touch the other stuff now. Humidity really shows you which glues can't handle the job.
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dylanwells1mo ago
Oh man, I feel that. Humidity just wrecks some glues. That wheat paste tip is a good one, I should try that on my next older book.
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beth_kelly1mo ago
Yeah, it's wild how fast it can go. I had a whole box of old postcards get that weird tacky feeling last summer, like they were melting.
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