A broken book at the flea market showed me something

I was at the flea market in Raleigh last Saturday and saw this old paperback that had completely separated from its cover. Looking at how the glue had failed gave me a new idea for how I could rebind some of my customer's books that have the same issue. Has anyone else gotten random ideas from seeing beat up old books in weird places?

3 comments

3 Comments

lee.drew10d ago

Heard a bookbinder once say that old paperbacks always teach you something about how not to glue stuff.

grace_wright10d ago

Actually ran into this exact thing a few months back with an old sci-fi paperback that had fallen apart at the spine. I ended up taking photos of how the pages had pulled away from the glue, and that gave me the idea to use a flexible PVA instead of the stiff stuff I had been using. Works way better now, the spines let the book open flat without cracking. I've been checking junk bins at thrift stores more often just to see what other repair clues are hiding in there. The beat up ones really do show you what not to do with the cheap glue jobs.

jamiew539d ago

That bit about the beat up ones showing you what not to do is spot on, but I have to gently push back on the "cheap glue" part. The thing is, a lot of those old paperbacks from the 70s and 80s used a specific hot-melt glue that was actually fine when new, it just degrades over time (especially if stored in heat). Cheap glue problems are usually more about using the wrong kind for the job, not that the glue itself is bad. I've seen some really expensive bookbinding glues fail just as badly on the wrong paper type.