I finally figured out why everyone's bookcloth is bubbling up on them

I was at a workshop in Portland last month and watched three people try to glue down bookcloth only to have it bubble up like crazy. They were using cheap PVA glue thinned with too much water. I mean, idk about you but I learned the hard way after ruining a 40 dollar batch of cloth that you gotta use a paste mix instead. A 50/50 blend of PVA and wheat paste changed everything for me. Has anyone else noticed people skipping proper grain direction too? That always makes the cloth buckle.

3 comments

3 Comments

amy_foster791mo ago

Wait I literally did this last week. Bought a whole roll of bookcloth from that place in Seattle thinking I was being smart, then watered down my PVA like an idiot and ended up with something that looked like a lizard shedding its skin. I swear I've ruined more bookcloth than I've actually bound. That 50/50 paste mix though, total game changer. Took me three years and probably 70 dollars in scrap cloth to finally learn that lesson.

amy_foster791mo ago

Yeah the 50/50 paste mix was the thing that finally clicked for me too after I switched to a brand called Lineco and it just absorbed perfectly without that gross alligator skin effect.

charles_kelly4329d ago

Three years and seventy bucks on scrap cloth seems like a lot, @amy_foster79. I mean, I get that bookcloth can be finicky (especially the cheap stuff), but are we really calling it "ruined" if you just mess up the glue? I've had some projects where the cloth looked like a wrinkled mess, but after it dried and I muscled it into the covers, you couldn't even tell. Plus, that 50/50 paste thing works great, but I've also had luck just using straight-up methyl cellulose on a cheaper cloth from a craft store. Maybe I'm just lazy, but I don't think a little alligator skin is the end of the world.