The 1941 pamphlet glue recipe that surprised me

I found an old Library of Congress conservation note about wheat paste made with rice flour and a specific starch ratio. Turns out that 1941 formula holds up better than most modern PVA I've used, and the pH reading came in at 6.8, almost perfect. I tested it on a 1920s novel last week and the spine flexed without a single crack. Has anyone else tried historical adhesive recipes from before the 1950s, and did you trust them on rare books?

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patricia_gonzalez22d ago

I saw a bookbinder on YouTube mention that old recipes like this often beat modern stuff because they were made for the materials of the time. That 6.8 pH is wild, most commercial pastes sit around 9 or 10 and can eat away at paper over decades. I tried a rabbit skin glue mix from a 1930s manual on a cloth binding once, worked great but smelled awful for a week lol. Rice flour sounds way more stable than wheat for long term storage, I might have to test that on a cheap paperback first.