Glue gets too much hate from purists in our craft

I keep hearing binders say glued books are cheap and won't last. That feels wrong to me now. Good quality adhesive made for books can hold for decades. Look at many hardcover novels from big publishers, they use glue and survive daily reading. Sure, sewing is better for heavy use like family bibles. But for a lot of what we make, glue is just fine. It saves time and lets beginners finish a project without fear.

3 comments

3 Comments

jana_scott1mo ago

Yeah that part about old mass market paperbacks is so true. My friend had this beat up copy of Dune from like, 1978. The cover was gone and the pages were that gross brown color, super brittle. But I mean, you could still flip through it and the spine held. All that was keeping it together was that old glue. It totally changed her view on it, she was also a sewing-only person before that. Sometimes the glue outlives the paper, idk. It made me see it's not always the weak point.

sageadams1mo ago

Yeah I was a total snob about this for years, refused to touch adhesive. What got me was pulling apart some old mass market paperbacks from the 70s. The paper is brittle and falling apart, but that glue is still holding strong. Modern book glue isn't the cheap crap people imagine. It's a legit choice. You're right, sewing is for heirloom stuff, but demanding it for every journal or novel is just gatekeeping.

emmag221mo ago

My grandma had a whole shelf of those old paperbacks, the ones with the yellow pages. Tried to read one once and a corner just crumbled off in my hand, but the book itself didn't fall apart. It's funny how the thing we all make fun of ends up being the last part standing. Makes you wonder what stuff we're snobby about now that'll be fine in fifty years.