Rinsed my bookcloth wrong and ruined a whole cover job yesterday

I was in a hurry binding a novel for a client and used tap water to thin my PVA. The cloth warped like crazy and left weird tide marks all over the cover. Lesson learned: only use distilled water for any glue mix, or even just straight PVA. Anybody else screw up a project with something as dumb as water choice?

2 comments

2 Comments

wesley_martin16d ago

Used to think water was water and it didn't matter. Boy was I wrong. Tried tap water once to save a trip to the store and my bookcloth looked like a wrinkled mess with white mineral deposits everywhere. Had to peel the whole thing off and start over with fresh materials. Now I keep a gallon of distilled under my work table specifically for glue mixing. That tap water mistake cost me like four hours of work and a chunk of good bookcloth.

dixon.spencer15d ago

Oh man, @wesley_martin that's a rough one. Four hours of work and some good bookcloth down the drain because of some tap water. I guess water is not just water after all, it's more like a sneaky little saboteur hiding in your pipes. Mineral deposits turning your bookcloth into a wrinkly mess sounds like a nightmare I didn't even know I had to worry about. Definitely giving my tap water the side eye from now on, even if I'm just making coffee. Nothing like a good cautionary tale to make you appreciate the basics.