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?

3 comments

3 Comments

nancygrant1mo ago

@dixon.spencer I get why people warn against tap water but I actually use it all the time here in Portland with no issues. Our water is pretty soft though, so maybe that makes the difference. I've been using tap water for PVA mixes for about two years now and never had warping or tide marks on my bookcloth. The mineral content really depends on where you live and how hard your water is. I think distilled water is definitely the safer bet but tap water isn't automatically going to ruin everything if your local supply is decent. Still, sorry about your cover job, that's a bummer when it happens.

wesley_martin2mo 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.spencer2mo 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.