That paste you're using might be rotting your spines

I noticed a few bindings from a shop in St. Louis that were already failing after just 18 months and the culprit was their wheat paste mix that had too much water and no preservative. The mold growth was subtle at first but the pages were actually sticking together in the humidity. Has anyone else run into this with homemade paste or do people mostly stick with PVA these days?

2 comments

2 Comments

william_taylor13d ago

You're making it sound like everyone who uses wheat paste is doomed to have their books fall apart. I've been using homemade paste for years and never had mold issues, as long as you store it right and don't leave it sitting around wet. Maybe that one shop just messed up the recipe or had a bad batch. Seems like user error more than a problem with paste itself.

the_elizabeth13d ago

Oh man, this is exactly the kind of thing that happens when people get too comfortable with a method and skip the basics, you know? It reminds me of how everyone makes sourdough starter the same way but some people's kitchens are just moldier and they don't even realize it until things go wrong. The shop's recipe failure was probably just them not accounting for humidity differences, which is a problem I see in all sorts of crafts and cooking (like bread rising too fast in the summer).