{"id":4868,"date":"2019-12-15T08:12:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-15T13:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/?p=4868"},"modified":"2020-01-02T16:08:21","modified_gmt":"2020-01-02T21:08:21","slug":"fixing-broken-book-backs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/fixing-broken-book-backs\/","title":{"rendered":"Fixing broken (book) backs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"worlds
It broke. But I’m fixing it :)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Okay, so I don’t often do product endorsements on this blog. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I love books. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I own old books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Old books break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like this book. It’s The World’s Best Fairy Tales<\/em>, a Reader’s Digest book <\/a>my grandparents gave me in 1968. And OMG how I loved this book! I must have read every story in it a million times. (I also used to make Grandma read to me out of it — makes me laugh now thinking of it — I wonder if she ever regretted gifting it, maybe? A teensy bit? Because of course I used to request the longest story in the book, Sinbad the Sailor. I think it’s 50 or 75 pages :D)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"adhesive
PH Neutral PVA. I’ve used it to fix broken books a bunch of times, now, and it works like a charm! <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, today I pulled the book out and GAH. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original glue had become completely dry and brittle. I no sooner touched the thing and chunks of pages started to fall out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, I have a fix. This stuff<\/a> –> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its an adhesive that is flexible when it dries. So when you open the book the spine can flex like it’s supposed to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to fix a broken book in 6 easy steps <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"fixing
I love old books, but when the glue dries, this happens :(<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Step 1,<\/strong> open the book to the spot where the pages are starting to fall out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I try to be super careful while I’m doing this so that I don’t break the book even more. Because the last thing I want to have to do is glue the pages back in one at a time =o<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But usually what happens is what you see here: chunks of pages falling out …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"fixing
Run a little bead of PH Neutral PVA down the inside of the spine. Not too much! Let’s not get sloppy here…<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Step 2:<\/strong> Run a little bead of the adhesive down the inside of the spine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I try to be careful here, too. I figure, too much adhesive and it might leak into the pages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trick is to move the tip of the bottle kind of swiftly and smoothly so that the bed is thin and light.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

First time? Practice first! Lay a bead down on a piece of paper, before you start on the book, so that you get a feel for how fast you should go to keep the line of adhesive thin & light. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"fixing
After you’ve laid down the adhesive, push the pages back into place, flush against the inside of the spine.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Step 3: <\/strong>Press the pages back into place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, every time I’ve done this, I’ve been dealing with chunks of pages. So it’s kind of easy to just press and tap the pages as a chunk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"fixing
Make sure the pages you’re gluing are flush against the inside of the spine.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Step 4:<\/strong> Check to make sure the pages are nice and flush. You want to make sure that the adhesive is adhering to both the spine and the pages :)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"fixing
One option is to prop the book on its back, like this, until the adhesive dries.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Step 5: <\/strong>Rig something to keep the pages flush against the spine while the adhesive dries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some of the books I’ve fixed this way, I’ve just set the book on a table, spine down (propped by other books to keep it from tipping over while the adhesive dries). When I fixed my old Roget’s Thesaurus, that’s what I did. The weight of the book was enough to keep the pages pressed against the spin until the glue was dry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"fixing
Yes, the ruler is probably about as old as the book … also remember when people didn’t need to use area codes because why would you ever want to call someone out of town, plus long distance was expensive?<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

But for my Fairy Tale book, I got a little creative. It’s a thick book — 2 and 1\/2 inches! — so the spine tends to curve inward slightly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I used a rubber band to strap a wooden ruler against the spine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"fixing
The ruler just happened to be the right shape for the job :)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It just happened that one side of my ruler is kind of convex, so it worked perfectly. It snugged right up against the spine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 6. <\/strong>Wait for a day or so until the adhesive dries. And that’s it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would I try this on a valuable book? Probably not. I’d probably take that sort of book to a professional to be restored. (And yeah, I see that in some cases people are asking for a lot of money for World’s Best Fairy Tales<\/em>. But you can also find copies for cheap. So yes, I recommend you pick up a copy if you’re a fan, but maybe don’t spend $80 for it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for old books that I just want to be able to handle again, this stuff is fabulous. I’ve fixed the dictionary I’ve had since I was a kid, I’ve fixed this old Roget’s thesaurus that I absolutely adore (sooo much better than online thesauruses. Really.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now I’m fixing my beloved Fairy Tale collection :)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever tried to glue a broken book? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Did it work? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you use PVA?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drop me a note or leave a comment!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P.S. this post includes affiliate links. If you click and buy I get a few pennies — no extra cost to you. But I promise you, you will be soooo glad you have a bottle of this stuff on hand. Thank you!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, so I don’t often do product endorsements on this blog. But I love books. I own old books. Old books break. Like this book. It’s The World’s Best Fairy Tales, a Reader’s Digest book my grandparents gave me in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1148,3],"tags":[449,450,453,452],"class_list":["post-4868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-do-it-yourself","category-writing","tag-broken-book","tag-fix-broken-book","tag-glue-broken-book","tag-pva-adhesive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4868"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4886,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4868\/revisions\/4886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirstenmortensen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}