Tried using a hair dryer to speed up my bookbinding glue... bad idea

Last week I was in a rush to finish a rebind for a client and thought blasting my PVA with a hair dryer on high would dry it in 5 minutes. Ended up with bubbles all over the spine and a melted cover board, has anyone else tried a cheap shortcut that backfired this hard?

3 comments

3 Comments

nguyen.morgan1mo ago

I tried using a space heater once to dry a stack of endpapers I'd just glued, set them too close and walked away for like 10 minutes. Came back to find the edges all curled up and crispy like bacon, and the worst part is the glue had melted through in spots and fused a few pages together. Tried to separate them and just ripped the whole thing, had to reprint and start from scratch. The bubbles you got on your spine are actually a nightmare I've had with heat guns too, it's like the trapped air expands and lifts the glue right off the board. I think we all get that moment where we think "faster must be better" and then reality hits with a bunch of ruined materials and wasted time.

hannah3201mo ago

Take it easy on yourself, it's just an oopsie not the end of the world. Is making a few mistakes really that big of a deal in the long run?

drew_jones311mo ago

Dude the bubbles are the WORST. I did basically the same thing with some bookcloth once, thought I was being smart hitting it with a heat gun on low. The glue got all tacky and stringy and I ended up with this nasty wrinkled mess on the spine that looked like a melted road map. Took me forever to peel it off and start over. We all learn the hard way that patience is actually cheaper than ruining materials lol.