Swapped my wheat paste for PVA glue on last week's project and didn't hate it

I used to think wheat paste was the only real way to do cloth covers, but I got tired of waiting 24 hours for it to dry. Last Wednesday I tried PVA glue on a batch of 5 books and they all held up fine through the pressing. The drying time dropped to about 4 hours, which saved me a whole evening. Is it traditional? No. But for a personal project, does speed really matter that much? I'm curious if anyone else has moved away from paste for certain jobs and what glue you use instead.

3 comments

3 Comments

karencampbell3d ago

Gotta admit I was one of those wheat paste purists for years. Thought anything else was cheating or would mess up the covers. Then I tried a PVA blend on some fabric journals last month and it worked way better than I expected, the books are holding up great and I didn't have to wait a whole day for them to dry. Honestly changed my whole approach for personal projects, speed really does matter when you're just trying to get something done and move on to the next thing.

jamesf293d ago

Cheating" is what I called it too, turns out I was just making things harder for myself. I'm with you on the speed thing, @karencampbell, waiting a whole day for wheat paste to dry always made me feel like I forgot to plan ahead.

susansingh3d ago

Haha @jamesf29 I feel called out because I was totally that person saying paste was the only way too. Switched to PVA on some sketchbooks last month and honestly I think my past self was just being dramatic about having to wait around. My books didn't explode so guess I was wrong about the cheating thing.