Unpopular opinion: Bookbinding glue doesn't need to be fancy

I had a chat with this old-timer at a shop in Portland last week who uses plain Elmers for all his spine work. He said he's been doing it for 20 years without a single book falling apart. Made me wonder if we're all just buying into expensive PVA hype for no reason.

2 comments

2 Comments

iris_rivera4410h agoMost Upvoted

Made book repair my hobby for a bit, tried the cheap stuff against expensive stuff side by side. The cheap white glue worked fine on paperbacks that nobody cared about five years later. It got brittle on thicker text blocks though, cracked right down the spine after a year of use. The expensive PVA stayed flexible and the books still open flat. So depends what you're making. If it's a notebook you'll toss, go cheap. If it needs to last, splurge a little.

charles_coleman6h ago

That PVA vs. cheap white glue thing reminds me of when I tried to fix a vintage cookbook my grandma gave me. Used some random craft glue from the dollar store and it worked okay until the binding got all stiff and the pages started pulling away from the spine like they were trying to escape. The book still opens but it feels wrong now, like the paper is fighting itself. Always wondered if the expensive stuff would have kept it feeling like a real book instead of a brick.