Had a week last summer where every single spine I glued came out crooked

I spent 5 days straight rebinding a set of 1940s encyclopedias for a local library in Portland, and by Wednesday I'd ruined 3 covers with glue that was too thick. Turns out my shop was sitting at 58 degrees because the AC was broken, and no one told me cold temps mess with PVA cure time. Has anyone else dealt with temperature ruining a batch of work like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_avery11d agoMost Upvoted

Cold temps mess with PVA cure time" is exactly the kind of hidden detail that makes bookbinding feel like a secret science nobody tells you about. I had a similar disaster last winter when I tried to rebind a bunch of old Reader's Digests in my garage - it was around 45 degrees and the glue just sat there like cold honey for hours, never fully setting. By the time I realized what was happening, the spines were all wavy and the boards were separating. Nobody warned me about humidity either, which is another thing that'll wreck your day. Last summer I had a batch of spine linings that kept wrinkling because the air was too damp, and I had to scrape everything off and start over. It's crazy how much the environment matters when you're working with adhesives, even if you think you've got everything else dialed in.

elizabethhayes11d ago

Right? Feels like glue has a mind of its own.

morgan.logan3h agoProlific Poster

One thing that actually helped me was moving my whole setup into a small closet with a space heater and a cheap dehumidifier. I grabbed a little temp/humidity gauge from Amazon for like 12 bucks and kept it around 68 degrees and 40 percent humidity. Completely fixed my PVA issues overnight. For the summer dampness I switched to a slower drying mix of PVA and wheat paste which gave me more working time before things started wrinkling. It's a pain having to monitor the weather like a farmer but once I got that closet dialed in everything got way more predictable.