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Old timer at a binding shop taught me more in 10 minutes than a year of YouTube
Back in 2018 I was struggling with a perfect bound book that kept having pages fall out. I took it to this little binding shop off Broadway in Portland, run by a guy who had to be pushing 80. He didn't even look at the book, just asked me what glue I was using and how long I let it cure. I told him PVA for about an hour and he laughed and said "that's your problem, you're treating it like a fast food order." He pulled out a jar of some old animal hide glue he mixed himself, showed me how to brush it on thin and let it tack up for a full 8 hours. That one fix saved me from tossing a whole batch of journals I was making for a client. Has anyone else run into an old school trick that completely changed how you bind things?
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christopherh791mo ago
You had the same problem I did? That animal hide glue is no joke. I switched to a pH-neutral PVA with a longer open time and started letting my spines cure under weight for a full 12 hours. No more popouts. Also, check your grain direction on the cover boards. If the grain runs parallel to the spine it can fight the glue joint and cause failure. That bit cost me a batch of sketchbooks before an old binder clued me in.
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brianm661mo ago
Oh man, grain direction is one of those things nobody tells you about until you've already messed up a bunch of stuff. I learned that the hard way too, wasted a good stack of board before someone pointed it out. The PVA swap makes total sense, hide glue dries so fast it's like fighting a clock. I've been using a similar approach with the long open time stuff and it's been night and day better for me.
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