Tried a $15 PVA glue for a batch of sketchbooks and my $9 wheat paste held up better after a year of use.

The PVA cracked on the spines within 6 months while the wheat paste is still flexible and solid, has anyone else had better luck with traditional pastes over modern adhesives?

2 comments

2 Comments

terry_thomas17h ago

Man that's rough, I feel your pain on this one. Nothing worse than spending time and money on something and watching it fall apart months later. I've been using wheat paste for years on my own sketchbooks and journals, and honestly it just works better for me too. Don't get me wrong, I've tried the expensive PH-neutral PVAs and they do hold up, but they're so expensive and hard to find sometimes. Wheat paste is just so forgiving and you never have to worry about it getting brittle or cracking over time. Plus when you mess up and need to redo a spine, it's way easier to soak off without wrecking the whole book. So yeah, you're not crazy, traditional stuff has its place and sometimes the old ways really are better for certain things.

jennyp1922h ago

PVA is not all the same. You probably used a school-grade PVA, not a bookbinding PVA. The cheap stuff dries hard and brittle. Bookbinders use EVA or pH-neutral PVA that stays flexible. Wheat paste does have real advantages though. It stays reversible way longer. PVA gets almost impossible to undo after a few years. Wheat paste also doesnt shrink as much as PVA does when it dries. The trick is knowing which PVA you actually bought. If it says "school glue" or "craft glue", thats your problem. Real bookbinding PVA costs more than $15 but lasts decades without cracking.