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Book Repair
Sep. 12th, 2005 12:33 pmToday I went to a class held at a library on repairing books.
The main thing I learned is that the magic key to everything (or at least to the easy things they taught us) is glue. In class I learned that librarians use something called polyvinyl acetate (PVA) which can be bought online from vendors mostly located in New York. Or you could use Elmer's glue-all. Additional research has shown me that white glue is PVA. So is Mod Podge, which you probably have if you're into decoupage.
We got to try "tipping in" a detached page (gluing it), mending tears (by gluing them back together), and consolidating corners of hardcover books that are frayed, split, or both, by putting glue all in them.
By going to the class instead of making this up yourself, you get to see how they keep from getting glue everywhere. Mask off the parts you don't want glue on with scrap paper. Then put waxed paper between the page you're working on and any adjacent pages you don't want to get glue on.
You also get to see how to clamp your job. For the first two jobs, put a weight on the book. For the corners, use a binder clip around cardboard squares (to protect the book from binder clip marks), which are, in turn, around wax paper (to keep the cardboard from sticking to the book cover).
The instructor said to let these projects stay clamped for fifteen to thirty minutes, but one of the web sites I came across says that white glue takes 60 minutes to dry. That was a wood-working site, though (bigger forces), so I only mention it in case you want to be really sure.
The people I linked to above also have instructions on repairing a messed-up binding before it gets too bad.
The main thing I learned is that the magic key to everything (or at least to the easy things they taught us) is glue. In class I learned that librarians use something called polyvinyl acetate (PVA) which can be bought online from vendors mostly located in New York. Or you could use Elmer's glue-all. Additional research has shown me that white glue is PVA. So is Mod Podge, which you probably have if you're into decoupage.
We got to try "tipping in" a detached page (gluing it), mending tears (by gluing them back together), and consolidating corners of hardcover books that are frayed, split, or both, by putting glue all in them.
By going to the class instead of making this up yourself, you get to see how they keep from getting glue everywhere. Mask off the parts you don't want glue on with scrap paper. Then put waxed paper between the page you're working on and any adjacent pages you don't want to get glue on.
You also get to see how to clamp your job. For the first two jobs, put a weight on the book. For the corners, use a binder clip around cardboard squares (to protect the book from binder clip marks), which are, in turn, around wax paper (to keep the cardboard from sticking to the book cover).
The instructor said to let these projects stay clamped for fifteen to thirty minutes, but one of the web sites I came across says that white glue takes 60 minutes to dry. That was a wood-working site, though (bigger forces), so I only mention it in case you want to be really sure.
The people I linked to above also have instructions on repairing a messed-up binding before it gets too bad.