Tried a new glue from a craft store in Omaha, total waste of $35

I bought a bottle of 'Archival Bookbinding Adhesive' for a rebind job last month. It set way too fast and left a weird, brittle film on the spine. Ended up having to strip the whole thing and start over, losing about three hours of work. Has anyone found a good PVA that actually stays open long enough for a proper spread?

3 comments

3 Comments

william_henderson19d ago

Ugh, that's the exact same stuff I got burned by last year... tried to fix a cookbook and it grabbed on contact, pulled the paper grain right up. That brittle film is the worst part, it just flakes off and gets everywhere. Feels like they're all cutting costs with fillers that ruin the flexibility. Makes you want to just go back to mixing your own paste sometimes.

wilson.sam7d ago

Maybe we just notice the bad batches more.

lucashart19d ago

Yeah, that's the worst. It feels like everything is made to fail fast now (tools, glue, even appliances). They design it to work just well enough that you buy it, but not well enough to last or do the job right. That brittle film thing is a dead giveaway of cheap materials. Makes you wonder if they even test this stuff on the actual craft, or just in some lab.