Best 75 bucks I ever spent was on a used book binding press

Everyone in my book club keeps raving about those fancy e-readers and digital copies, but I went the opposite direction last spring. I picked up a beat up book binding press at a flea market in Portland for 75 dollars. It's a clunky old thing from the 1960s, but it let me repair my grandpa's copy of Moby Dick that was falling apart. I spent a Saturday learning how to reback the spine and fix the broken hinges. Now I bring that same book to every meeting and people actually stop to look at it instead of scrolling past. Has anyone else tried fixing up old books instead of just replacing them?

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jesse_barnes374mo ago

Let me ask you this - did you have to soak the old glue off with anything special, or did it just peel right away?

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ryan_carr594mo ago

Nah you're overthinking it, that old glue is way too stubborn to just peel off. You gotta hit it with some acetone or mineral spirits, let it sit for a few minutes, then scrape like crazy. Anything else and you'll be fighting it for hours.

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