Tested hot glue vs PVA on a spine repair and hot glue won by a mile

I tried fixing a torn textbook cover from the 80s last month with PVA because everyone says it's archival safe. The pages kept popping loose after a day. So I hit it with hot glue on the spine joint instead and that thing is solid now. Honestly, I know PVA is the standard but for a cheap student book that just needs to survive the semester, hot glue held up way better. Has anyone else found a situation where the "wrong" glue actually worked?

2 comments

2 Comments

johnson.ryan16d ago

That book from the 80s probably had old hide glue or something similar already in the spine, right? @holly_gonzalez61 PVA might not bond to that residue as well as hot glue which melts into everything. Did you do any prep on the spine like scraping off the old glue first, or did you just go straight over it?

holly_gonzalez6116d ago

Wait, you hot glued a book spine? That's wild. I've never heard of someone doing that. PVA is like the holy grail for book people. Hot glue is usually for crafts and stuff. I can't believe it held up better than the archival stuff. That's crazy.