That time a retired bookbinder told me to skip the PVA glue for leather

I was restoring this old 1920s field journal last month, and a guy named Frank who used to bind books at the local college library told me to never use PVA glue on leather spines. He said it would dry too stiff and crack after a few years. I'd already prepped everything with PVA because that's what I always use for cloth bindings, but I went ahead and switched to a wheat paste mix instead. The leather ended up way more flexible and actually lay flat against the spine without those weird puckers I'd get before. I had to redo two sections because the paste took longer to set, but the end result looked way cleaner. Has anyone else had better luck with wheat paste over PVA on older leather materials?

2 comments

2 Comments

blair_davis5017d ago

Frank from the bindery might be old school, but I've been using PVA on leather for over 15 years and only had cracking on really dry, brittle old leather that was falling apart anyway. Wheat paste is great for flexibility, but it takes forever to dry and can attract mold in humid basements.

spencer_wood17d ago

Huh, @blair_davis50, I gotta say I think you might be overthinking this. PVA on leather? Cracking is usually from the leather itself being trash, not the glue. I've slapped it on all sorts of stuff and it holds fine. If it's breaking apart, that leather was already dead. And the mold thing with wheat paste? Only if you're drowning it in water or your basement is literally a swamp. Most people's basements aren't that bad. Seems like a minor risk for the flexibility you get. I mean, is it really that deep?