Talked to a printer at a craft fair about glue and it changed my whole approach

I was at the local fair in Springfield last weekend, and a guy running a letterpress booth saw me looking at his work. He said, 'You know, we used to use hide glue for everything, but I switched to a 50/50 mix of PVA and methyl cellulose about five years ago.' He explained that the mix gives you more open time and less warping on thin papers. I'd always stuck with straight PVA for cost, but his point about control really hit home. Has anyone else tried a glue mix like that for case binding?

3 comments

3 Comments

caleba641mo ago

Got me thinking about this weird glue my dad used for model planes. Smelled like old socks but held forever, even if you got the pieces a little wrong. Kinda miss that smell now, even if the new stuff is probably better.

james_ramirez1mo ago

Remember watching my uncle try to bind a family cookbook with straight wood glue. The pages were so stiff you could barely open it, and the whole thing warped into a little boat shape overnight. He was so mad he threw the whole project in a box for a decade. Makes you wonder how many good projects get ruined just because we stick with the first glue we try, right? That printer's mix sounds like it fixes the exact problems my uncle had. Maybe the old ways aren't always the best if they make your work harder to do.

charles9191mo ago

Yeah that "little boat shape" part got me lol. Been there with the wrong glue ruining something you put time into.