Thank you for putting out these instructional bookbinding videos! Quick question, you mentioned oil of cloves as a preservative. How long does the paste last when stored in the fridge?
It seems to depend on how good your sanitation is and maybe even local yeasts. I usually get a couple of weeks without and preservative. But it is important to sieve before using after storing. These days I only use refined starch paste for paper repair. Methyl cellulose is a far more convenient general purpose paste type adhesive.
At the risk of being one of "Those" guys, I have a couple of questions. 1) You say you can use just plain all purpose wheat flour in place of the starch. Same ratio and procedure as with the starch? 2) Can corn starch be used in place of wheat or rice starch? Sorry, I know, a newbie driving you nuts. Thank you for your time. Joe
Great questions. All bookbinders will adjust their ratios with experience and what they are after. I'll make a thicker paste for putting on the spine of old books to soften the animal hide glue for removal and I'll make a thinner mix if I'm doing a lot of paper repair. It can be thinned down with water, so thicker is usually better. You can add water but not take it away. For wheat flour maybe try 5:1 to start and adjust depending on how it works for you. I admit I've only made it once as an experiment (for bookbinding anyway - I do have kids). You can experiment with all types of starch. I know people who use corn starch because it is easy to get. Mark Cockram uses starch based packing peanuts! I'm sure he has put this on the web somewhere, but can;t find it right now. One last thing regarding other types of paste, I would only use exotic sources of starch on my own work and not clients.
Thank you for the explanation. O made some wheat paste this evening. 3 TBS of flour mixed in enough cold water to make a creamy mix then cooked on 1 cup of water until a gravy consistency. Let it cool and used it to case in my book. This worked okay the best i can tell. Now that this project is done, for better or worse. I think I will step back and try a simple notebook of sewn signatures made of folded letter paper. I know the grain will run the wrong way, but I am more interested in understanding and performing the process. The. Worry about the correct materials. Perhaps I should buy your little notebook kit. But I suspect that shipping to the USA is expensive. I have sent a couple of items to a fellow UA-camr in Australia and it had been expensive for me to ship there. Thank you again sir for your time. Joe
Good luck. Maybe try the square back bradel binding next. You have so many sources of materials in the US than here in Australia. Look at Talas www.talasonline.com/ I bet a few phone calls to printing suppliers and you'll find short grain letter sized paper.
Hello and thank you for you diligence in posting your videos teaching bookbinding. A top is I’d like to see you address is the making of book cloth. Have you done it? Is there a good home method of putting a wipeable finish on book cloth?
In the past I made cloth the same way as most of the videos on UA-cam, backing with paper. I have also experimented with filling the cloth with starch and methyl cellulose. But I still wasn't happy with the result. But in the last month or so I found some new information I'm experimenting with. So, yes this is coming up, but maybe 2 months away. Take care, DAS
Hello , The pasta you use starch , in Spanish is Almidón . Is it used to glue the leather or just hidrate ? Thank you for your videos and sorry for my English. Greetings from Spain with great affection.
Since I made this video I changed how I use paste. I now use wheat flour paste for leather and it is used as an adhesive - to glue the leather to the boards. I have some videos demonstrating how I use it for leather and a new video on making the wheat flour paste. I wanted to work and live in Spain after I graduated, but it didn't happen. Its sounds like one of the most beautiful and interesting countries in the world. Maybe I'll still get to visit one day. All the best, Darryn
Thank you for the video. There’s a thing that I’m concerned a lot, hope that you will answer. Where I live - Vietnam has quite high humidity, especially in spring so I wonder if this glue will get moldy after it is applied to paper and fabric? Thank you in advance.
Mould is caused by the presence of mould spores - which are everywhere - and a humid environment. The most important thing to avoid mould is keeping the humidity as low as possible. Paper and fabric are as susceptible to mould as starch. The reason the paste "goes off" is because it is wet and perfect conditions for mould and other microorganisms. This would be true of paper and cloth if it were wet. Once the paste dries, it is not much different to paper and fabric. Brisbane in summer is similar to your conditions. This past summer has been a real struggle. Even with a dehumidifier the bindery was often over 60% RH. Between 45% and 60% is my target for humidity.
First of all thanks for another excellent tutorial. By my count, preparing the paste in the Thermomix takes 1 hour and 30 minutes. Will it be possible to shorten some stages to reduce the total time to 45 minutes, for example? And which phases can be shortened with the least damage? Excuse me for asking but wouldn't it be better to add the clover oil only in the final cooling phase. As a general rule, essential oils lose their qualities when heated. Isn't clover oil the same?
Was it that long? You could do 10 minutes of mixing on cold, 20 minutes to cook, and 10 minutes of cooling while stirring? 40 min total. If you cut down on anything, the mixing can almost be got rid of. It's more habit than science that part. The clove oil thing is a bit folksy. Trying to answer this started turning into an essay. I'll address it in the future in a blog post or something. Short answer is that whatever chemical acts as the preservative seems to survive the heat, because it works. But adding the oil before cooking means the oil is either well incorporated into the paste and some of it will evaporate. I'd rather not have oil leaching into the book. It also seems to act like a surfactant and reduce bubbles in the finished paste if added before cooking.
@@DASBookbinding Thanks for the quick response. Sorry for the late Reply. 40 minutes is already an acceptable time... I'll try the Thermomix method... Happy New Year to you and your family
Hi! I am new to bookbinding, and I learn from your videos, is the wheat paste used as a solid method for gluing? As compared to PVA? I want to make my own bookcloth and I am wondering if the wheat paste is a permanent method used by professionals, or is it only amateurs and beginners? Is it something I could sell? I am a marbler wanting to make my own notebooks with my papers on them, and wonder if wheat paste is a good option for me. I attempted PVA to back my marbled silk and washi papers and the PVA glue was a little hard to manage. Thanks in advance!
Wheat paste is very much a high quality adhesive used by professional bookbinders. Not a lot of professional bookbinders would make their own bookcloth, more the creative types. I have just made a video about backing fabric with paper to use as bookcloth and in this I mention that PVA has some disadvantages over paste, mainly in cleaning up. I will be doing another video where I impregnate the fabric with different substances such as paste, methyl cellulose and a mix of paste and acrylic. The last of these may be best for bookcloth you might like to sell. All the best, Darryn
i'm certain you have a video of making book clothe with past but i cant seem to find it . i plan to make some cases to keep some vintage books in for a friend.
I’ve made 2 batches of starch paste. The first went from liquid to solid like - whoosh - so quick. So the second I heated very slowly taking nearly 40 minutes, not knowing at what heat it actually went - whoosh!. Eventually it got to what appeared to be the right consistency when I poured it into the jar. It wasn’t thickish and opaque like yours but white and cooled to be solid jelly. Does that sound like the correct consistency? I am able to pass it through a sieve but it remains sort of ‘grainy’. I see your make of starch does not contain borax whereas mine does - could that be the difference? If there is a difference!
I assume you're using the standard 5:1. Maybe try 6:1. Not all starch is equal. It is fairly solid after being made and put in the fridge. Did you see my recent video on wheat flour paste? I'm mostly using this for leather work now and the starch paste just for paper repair and paste paper. I always push the paste through the strainer 3, 4 or 5 times. In between each time through I also stir is thoroughly. I add water during this stage to get the thickness I want, which may be thin for fine paper repairs. I've never heard of adding Borax, but that is almost certainly as a preservative. I like the clove oil. Hope that helps. Darryn
@@DASBookbinding It's probably the gluten, lol. That's a large part of why gluten free baked goods are more likely to fall apart, anyway. I'll have to look into paste alternatives.
@@craftopus1140 Nope. In this video I use a highly refined wheat starch with no/trace amounts of gluten. But for leather binding I use wheat flour paste with the highest gluten content I can find, and it is a much stronger adhesive. The gluten does make a huge different. It does yellow with age, but this not due to acidity and "paper burn". But for attaching leather it isn't seen anyway. I use flour for leather and refined starch for paper repair.
How do you get it so thin? It seems like no matter how much water I use, it always sets like ballistics gel if I cook it until it goes translucent. I tried using 8:1 water to rice starch and it still holds its shape. Next time I'm just going to try an absurd ratio and see what happens.
Have a look at my wheat flour paste video and try that. I'm less fussy about mix ratio with wheat flour - 2 heaped tablespoons to 250ml of water. Also, forcing it through the strainer and forcefully mixing mixing mixing is important - critical. Good luck! DAS
2:56 The preservative effect is, I gather, mostly about stopping fungal growth? So instead of clove oil one ought to be able to use sodium benzoate that you use for fruit preserves?🤔 In fruit preserves you use half a gram per kilogram or so, so it should not influence the adhesive properties. I'll have to do an experiment when I eventually dare to start trying my hand at leather bookbinding. 😊
So you really only use this mixture for leather and laminating paper? Do you find that your leather or laminated paper going bad or decomposing? Can you show us your laminated paper? What is the the purpose of this laminated paper and is it slightly yellow? I'm guessing this mix is not non acidic, and it will yellow whatever subtance you use it on? thx alot! :)
I mostly use mix for laminating, usually paper. By laminating I mean adhering 2 large flat things such as paper to paper, paper to board, cloth to board, etc. The gold standard for paper conservation work is pure starch adhesive because it is chemically non-reactive and reversible. The PVA/EVA I use is Evasol which is specifically made as a conservation grade adhesive. But most consumer PVAs designed for paper are fine for the vast majority of jobs. A mix made of one of these PVAs and paste, either MC or starch, will be close to pH neutral and will not cause acid burn or degradation. I highly recommend people starting out using paste or mix when putting down endpapers (the paste down). It is too easy to mess up a book at this very last step. Using paste or mix provides an opportunity to correct a mistake. An example of laminating paper to paper is in the made endpaper. Sorry about the loud music, this was one of my earliest videos. It is also an example of where I mix up a small quantity of starch paste and PVA, rather than MC, in my fancy Japanese bowl. ua-cam.com/video/4vN5xSY86iw/v-deo.html It’s not just me that does not see decomposing paper when using paste or mix. These have been the standard adhesives for bookbinders for hundreds of years. Everything decomposes with enough time. The question is how this can be slowed. The best evidence bookbinders have is that these are the best adhesives to use to slow this process. Regarding yellowing, I’m not sure why you think starch paste or PVA/EVA would cause yellowing. Flour paste is avoided in paper conservation work because the gluten is known to cause the adhesive to go yellow with age. But prior to refined starch being available this was what all paste was made of and most books made prior to say the 18th century are evidence of the quality of flour paste. For covering a book in leather, I mostly use straight paste. There are some occasions I will use PVA/EVA in a less traditional approach. Hope this helps. It’s been useful for me as I’ve been working on a script for a video on the use of adhesives in bookbinding. All the best, DAS
@@DASBookbinding How about corn starch or boiling rice? Would eithermake conservation quality adhesive? I just thought it would yellow because it's not NON ADIC, or PH neutral, I'm interested in conservation, I know you mentioned rye starch & wheat starch, thx again♥♥☻☺
@@ArtWars314 To answer this, we need to unpack what “conservation quality” is. Maybe we could assume that this means it is an adhesive that a professional conservator would use. In which case a professional conservator will use the most appropriate adhesive for the individual job, and this will be based on lots of research and knowledge. This is why if you look at Talas’ website for conservation adhesives there are heaps that almost no one except conservators have heard of. Maybe the conservator is working on iron-gall ink and needs an adhesive with no water in it and thus uses an adhesive that can use some form of alcohol as the solvent. But let’s simplify this and say it’s a paper conservator repairing a tear that does not cross text. They are likely to use Jin Shofu starch paste, which is a Japanese wheat starch. Why use this and not Silver Star laundry starch, which I use and is also a refined wheat starch? Because the easiest thing they can control is the adhesive they are using. They want consistency and some form of guarantee of quality. Will corn starch work? Yes. For fun I’ve extracted starch from potatoes and used it for paste. But now the water is probably more important that the starch. The reality is most tap water is fine. My tap water is slightly alkaline with a pH of about 7.8 which is perfect for many jobs as I know the calcium carbonate in the water acts as a buffering agent. But this would be harmful for some photos which react with alkaline substances. Would a professional conservator use corn starch from the supermarket? Probably not. A final thing on conservation, knowledge and techniques are as equally important as the materials. All the best, DAS
@@DASBookbinding I see I see, this is super helpful! ☻☺Very good to know since I'm thinking about diving into some aspect of book making and eventually selling these books that I would hope to be heirlooms sometime in the future♥♥ This info is gold and it's exactly what I'm looking for since I'm new and I'd like learning from people that are experienced like yourself. sorry if some of my questions are stupid but I'm quite new at this and I haven't been able to watch ALL of your videos in entirety. I would love how life is busy so I often just play a playlist of your videos in the background as I go on my day and just LISTEN to your narrative ( I would love to sit and watch with undivided attention but the day is SHORT!)☻☺ so I might miss bits and pieces here and there so sorry if the questions were already covered. Thank you so much! I find this new hobby fascinating :) Cheers and may the good LORD Jesus keep you joyfully binding! Cheer♥♥
What are the pieces heard in this video, particularly the first two ? I've never heard them before. I tried Jon Sayles's site but it only has guitar pieces. The pieces heard here are piano pieces.
@@DASBookbinding Thank you, that's amazing! I had never even heard of this pieces before. They are extraordinary! They absolutely sound like Bach but at the same time it is so surprising to find that Bach wrote such pieces.
@@DASBookbinding dang too bad. I can’t find the rice starch online either, so I might have to go to a Asian store to find it. But I did find a very simple recipe! So I might actually try that first. Thanks for the reply :))
Does anyone know if cornstarch can be used instead of wheat starch. In my country, Brazil, I can't find wheat starch, but I want to avoid flour paste due to possible stains on bookcloths
Most cornstarch is actually wheat starch - with added marketing. I believe Whitewings (our local brand) cornstarch is actual cornstarch, and I have tried it and I found it a bit brittle. Unless doing paper repair I would just use wheat flour paste. DAS
I think in the video I say to use a 4:1 ratio of water to starch. Recently I've been using more 5:1. Depends on how wet you want your paste. ua-cam.com/video/S4tA_WcetxU/v-deo.html
You can, but it is different. Some people say PVA is better because it is flexible. Also the fast drying time of PVA makes working much faster. Tom Conroy talks about this in this paper cool.culturalheritage.org/coolaic/sg/bpg/annual/v06/bp06-01.html All the best, DAS
@@DASBookbinding thanks a lot for your quick reply. I have found bookbinding as a hobby and I am very passionate about it. I've already done a lot of binding projects and I have just used regular white glue for it. Now I'm really looking forward to using this in my next project. I also have a old paperback whose pages have started to fall apart, that I want to repair. So I needed a strong, flexible (archival quality) adhesive that will hold it together the book. Most people on the internet suggest using PVA glue, but that is not easily accessible where I live. So I was wondering, can this be a viable alternative in such a case. Again, thanks a lot for taking the time to reply, I have got to learn a lot from your channel. Please keep posting such amazing videos..
@@abbashaidari8313 Yep, I understand. So before PVA bookbinders used animal protein glues. And these are still good glues and are often used in conservation work, and general work for that matter. It is just a bit more inconvenient because it needs to be kept warm. I bet you have access to eating gelatine. This will make a good glue for double fan and spine adhesive. I think I use half a teaspoon to 60ml of water (it's written on the jar I use which is in the bindery). Mix hot and let cool to warm to use. Keep warm or it sets. If you can get hide glue this is good too. All the best, DAS
Has anyone used the food grade wheat starches vs the Lineco brand one? There’s a dramatic price difference and wondering if the Lineco is worth it. (The food grade ones I’m finding on Amazon/US seem to be packaged for Middle East/Asian market, so I can’t really tell much about them… and the laundry starches I’m finding don’t specify what type of starch it is, and say ‘pre-gelatinized’. Do we want gelatin? I’m thinking no?) I tried making some with cornstarch just bc I had it on hand, and it LOOKS just like what’s in the video, at least after I watered it down a bit. Started at a 3:1 ratio based on another recipe, and it didn’t so much ‘thicken’ as ‘congeal into a gelatinous mass’, so I added an additional part of water while still on the stove, then a 5th part after it cooled, and strained it through cheesecloth to mix that in well. (So ended up at a 5:1 ratio.) Used tea tree oil, bc again, had it on hand, and I’m working on ‘student projects’ where I don’t care so much about archival quality. Very happy with the result - not sure how it compares to DAS’s, but it seems almost identical to the Nori Paste I’ve purchased.
No, Lineco is not worth it. Different starch based adhesives from Talas are much cheaper. Yes, people have used different starches for, well forever. I've experimented with plenty just for fun too. Just for the hell of it one day I decided to extract starch from potatoes and turn it into glue. Pre-gelatinized is what the instant pastes are made of. The paste is made, probably vacuum dried and powdered again. But I think the best thing to do is buy 1lb of methyl cellulose from Talas and that will last for years, and the made up adhesive will last for ages. Good luck! DAS
Thanks Darryn. I note that in Australia a tablespoon is 20ml whereas elsewhere it is only 15ml. My measure said 15ml so I scaled up - and I wound up with a glutinous lumpy mess. Try try again...!
The are different types of starches and they don’t all work as well. I’ve tried corn flour and thought it was very brittle. But others have told me it work. Unless you are going paper repair just use wheat flour - unless you’re celiac.
0:58 So an antipodean tablespoon is 133% of a european one? Interesting. Kind of like the german carpenter’s square I have that has English inches divided into sixths and twelfths instead of eights and sixteenths. Is the teaspoon still 5 mL? 🧐🤔
I haven’t been able (in not that dedicated a search) to find clove oil. Do you think tea tree oil would work as a preservative, given its antiseptic properties?
I get the cloves oil at the chemist (well, the last bottle I got was over 3 years ago). Just a small bottle but it will last a long time. I image tea tree oil will work too. Some people might be uneasy introducing a chemical with unknown long term effects. But the quantity is so small it is very low risk. The cloves oil has been used for so long by so many people it can't be doing any harm or it would have been noticed. All the best, Darryn
Check out my video about adhesives for bookbinding. This will explain the difference between glue and paste and why the term archival doesn't really mean much. But short answer is that this paste has excellent long term characteristics and refined starch paste is the choice of conservators for paper repair. DAS
Yes, wheat flour for general adhesive. Same ratio. But not for paper repair where you can see the dry paste. The gluten will go slightly yellow with age. No oil needed. DAS
Did I mention how unhappy I was about my wife buying it, until I realised it was the ultimate paste maker:) I figure I'll never get one of those Japanese horse hair sieves - without selling one of the children anyway.
This question is from forever ago, but I was wondering if tea tree or lavender oil might work. When I searched for the properties of clove oil, anti-bacterial came up, which I’m guessing is what makes it work as a preservative? Both tea tree and lavender oil are supposed to have anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties, so I’m thinking they’d serve the same purpose.
Peppermint oil also has anti-microbial and anti-fungal qualities, and might smell better. I haven’t tried even making paste yet, so can’t say it they work, but I’d guess they should all be pretty easy to find.
"... I'll stir it regularly until I get bored ...".
Perfect, perfect instructions!
Luckily I don;t get bored too easily:) DAS
"Great, Whatcha Got Cookin In The Thermomix" - "Aw, Starch With Clove Oil"
"mmm, that... that sounds good, mate"
And to really annoy your spouse use the expensive Thermomix silicone pastry mat to make bookcloth:) DAS
@@DASBookbindingNothing but the best and besides that is what soap and water is for 😁 Why yes I am being a smart donkey
Very impressive with all the two methods of paste making. Thank you very much.
Very smooth. Thanks for uploading! This would be the best for pasting cloth and end-pages to boards. Is that correct?
Thank you for putting out these instructional bookbinding videos!
Quick question, you mentioned oil of cloves as a preservative. How long does the paste last when stored in the fridge?
It seems to depend on how good your sanitation is and maybe even local yeasts. I usually get a couple of weeks without and preservative. But it is important to sieve before using after storing. These days I only use refined starch paste for paper repair. Methyl cellulose is a far more convenient general purpose paste type adhesive.
At the risk of being one of "Those" guys, I have a couple of questions.
1) You say you can use just plain all purpose wheat flour in place of the starch. Same ratio and procedure as with the starch?
2) Can corn starch be used in place of wheat or rice starch?
Sorry, I know, a newbie driving you nuts. Thank you for your time.
Joe
Great questions. All bookbinders will adjust their ratios with experience and what they are after. I'll make a thicker paste for putting on the spine of old books to soften the animal hide glue for removal and I'll make a thinner mix if I'm doing a lot of paper repair. It can be thinned down with water, so thicker is usually better. You can add water but not take it away. For wheat flour maybe try 5:1 to start and adjust depending on how it works for you. I admit I've only made it once as an experiment (for bookbinding anyway - I do have kids). You can experiment with all types of starch. I know people who use corn starch because it is easy to get. Mark Cockram uses starch based packing peanuts! I'm sure he has put this on the web somewhere, but can;t find it right now. One last thing regarding other types of paste, I would only use exotic sources of starch on my own work and not clients.
Thank you for the explanation. O made some wheat paste this evening. 3 TBS of flour mixed in enough cold water to make a creamy mix then cooked on 1 cup of water until a gravy consistency. Let it cool and used it to case in my book. This worked okay the best i can tell. Now that this project is done, for better or worse. I think I will step back and try a simple notebook of sewn signatures made of folded letter paper. I know the grain will run the wrong way, but I am more interested in understanding and performing the process. The. Worry about the correct materials. Perhaps I should buy your little notebook kit. But I suspect that shipping to the USA is expensive. I have sent a couple of items to a fellow UA-camr in Australia and it had been expensive for me to ship there. Thank you again sir for your time.
Joe
Good luck. Maybe try the square back bradel binding next. You have so many sources of materials in the US than here in Australia. Look at Talas www.talasonline.com/ I bet a few phone calls to printing suppliers and you'll find short grain letter sized paper.
Hello and thank you for you diligence in posting your videos teaching bookbinding. A top is I’d like to see you address is the making of book cloth. Have you done it? Is there a good home method of putting a wipeable finish on book cloth?
In the past I made cloth the same way as most of the videos on UA-cam, backing with paper. I have also experimented with filling the cloth with starch and methyl cellulose. But I still wasn't happy with the result. But in the last month or so I found some new information I'm experimenting with. So, yes this is coming up, but maybe 2 months away. Take care, DAS
Hello ,
The pasta you use starch , in Spanish is Almidón . Is it used to glue the leather or just hidrate ?
Thank you for your videos and sorry for my English.
Greetings from Spain with great affection.
Since I made this video I changed how I use paste. I now use wheat flour paste for leather and it is used as an adhesive - to glue the leather to the boards. I have some videos demonstrating how I use it for leather and a new video on making the wheat flour paste. I wanted to work and live in Spain after I graduated, but it didn't happen. Its sounds like one of the most beautiful and interesting countries in the world. Maybe I'll still get to visit one day. All the best, Darryn
Thanks for your reply. 😃
Thank you for the video. There’s a thing that I’m concerned a lot, hope that you will answer. Where I live - Vietnam has quite high humidity, especially in spring so I wonder if this glue will get moldy after it is applied to paper and fabric? Thank you in advance.
Mould is caused by the presence of mould spores - which are everywhere - and a humid environment. The most important thing to avoid mould is keeping the humidity as low as possible. Paper and fabric are as susceptible to mould as starch. The reason the paste "goes off" is because it is wet and perfect conditions for mould and other microorganisms. This would be true of paper and cloth if it were wet. Once the paste dries, it is not much different to paper and fabric. Brisbane in summer is similar to your conditions. This past summer has been a real struggle. Even with a dehumidifier the bindery was often over 60% RH. Between 45% and 60% is my target for humidity.
@@DASBookbinding Thank you sir, for the detailed explanation.
First of all thanks for another excellent tutorial.
By my count, preparing the paste in the Thermomix takes 1 hour and 30 minutes. Will it be possible to shorten some stages to reduce the total time to 45 minutes, for example? And which phases can be shortened with the least damage?
Excuse me for asking but wouldn't it be better to add the clover oil only in the final cooling phase. As a general rule, essential oils lose their qualities when heated. Isn't clover oil the same?
Was it that long? You could do 10 minutes of mixing on cold, 20 minutes to cook, and 10 minutes of cooling while stirring? 40 min total. If you cut down on anything, the mixing can almost be got rid of. It's more habit than science that part.
The clove oil thing is a bit folksy. Trying to answer this started turning into an essay. I'll address it in the future in a blog post or something. Short answer is that whatever chemical acts as the preservative seems to survive the heat, because it works. But adding the oil before cooking means the oil is either well incorporated into the paste and some of it will evaporate. I'd rather not have oil leaching into the book. It also seems to act like a surfactant and reduce bubbles in the finished paste if added before cooking.
@@DASBookbinding Thanks for the quick response. Sorry for the late Reply. 40 minutes is already an acceptable time... I'll try the Thermomix method... Happy New Year to you and your family
Hi! I am new to bookbinding, and I learn from your videos, is the wheat paste used as a solid method for gluing? As compared to PVA? I want to make my own bookcloth and I am wondering if the wheat paste is a permanent method used by professionals, or is it only amateurs and beginners? Is it something I could sell? I am a marbler wanting to make my own notebooks with my papers on them, and wonder if wheat paste is a good option for me. I attempted PVA to back my marbled silk and washi papers and the PVA glue was a little hard to manage. Thanks in advance!
Wheat paste is very much a high quality adhesive used by professional bookbinders. Not a lot of professional bookbinders would make their own bookcloth, more the creative types. I have just made a video about backing fabric with paper to use as bookcloth and in this I mention that PVA has some disadvantages over paste, mainly in cleaning up. I will be doing another video where I impregnate the fabric with different substances such as paste, methyl cellulose and a mix of paste and acrylic. The last of these may be best for bookcloth you might like to sell. All the best, Darryn
@@DASBookbinding thank you sir for your reply!
i'm certain you have a video of making book clothe with past but i cant seem to find it . i plan to make some cases to keep some vintage books in for a friend.
Haven't quite got there on the bookcloth video. I'm working on one now. Maybe a few weeks away. I may have said that in the past. All the best, DAS
@@DASBookbinding oh my . Try to be fast I need to make some for a Christmas present I'm working on.
I’ve made 2 batches of starch paste.
The first went from liquid to solid like - whoosh - so quick. So the second I heated very slowly taking nearly 40 minutes, not knowing at what heat it actually went - whoosh!. Eventually it got to what appeared to be the right consistency when I poured it into the jar. It wasn’t thickish and opaque like yours but white and cooled to be solid jelly. Does that sound like the correct consistency? I am able to pass it through a sieve but it remains sort of ‘grainy’.
I see your make of starch does not contain borax whereas mine does - could that be the difference? If there is a difference!
I assume you're using the standard 5:1. Maybe try 6:1. Not all starch is equal. It is fairly solid after being made and put in the fridge. Did you see my recent video on wheat flour paste? I'm mostly using this for leather work now and the starch paste just for paper repair and paste paper. I always push the paste through the strainer 3, 4 or 5 times. In between each time through I also stir is thoroughly. I add water during this stage to get the thickness I want, which may be thin for fine paper repairs. I've never heard of adding Borax, but that is almost certainly as a preservative. I like the clove oil. Hope that helps. Darryn
Neat! Do you know if it works with tapioca starch? I can't use wheat, but I have plenty of rice flour and tapioca starch for gluten free baking.
I don't think rice or tapioca starch are as strong adhesive. But I've not done rigorous testing on this. Also think they are more brittle.
@@DASBookbinding It's probably the gluten, lol. That's a large part of why gluten free baked goods are more likely to fall apart, anyway.
I'll have to look into paste alternatives.
@@craftopus1140 Nope. In this video I use a highly refined wheat starch with no/trace amounts of gluten. But for leather binding I use wheat flour paste with the highest gluten content I can find, and it is a much stronger adhesive. The gluten does make a huge different. It does yellow with age, but this not due to acidity and "paper burn". But for attaching leather it isn't seen anyway. I use flour for leather and refined starch for paper repair.
How do you get it so thin? It seems like no matter how much water I use, it always sets like ballistics gel if I cook it until it goes translucent. I tried using 8:1 water to rice starch and it still holds its shape. Next time I'm just going to try an absurd ratio and see what happens.
Have a look at my wheat flour paste video and try that. I'm less fussy about mix ratio with wheat flour - 2 heaped tablespoons to 250ml of water. Also, forcing it through the strainer and forcefully mixing mixing mixing is important - critical. Good luck! DAS
Is this the paste you use for your paste papers? At a 9:1 ratio instead?
Yep. I sometimes just use flour paste if have some left over.
2:56 The preservative effect is, I gather, mostly about stopping fungal growth? So instead of clove oil one ought to be able to use sodium benzoate that you use for fruit preserves?🤔 In fruit preserves you use half a gram per kilogram or so, so it should not influence the adhesive properties. I'll have to do an experiment when I eventually dare to start trying my hand at leather bookbinding. 😊
The main thing is to sieve the paste before using.
Is it usefull to colour the paste paper? Or have you to add more water?
More water to use for paste paper. I use a 9:1 water to starch mix for paste papers. Good luck! DAS
So you really only use this mixture for leather and laminating paper? Do you find that your leather or laminated paper going bad or decomposing? Can you show us your laminated paper? What is the the purpose of this laminated paper and is it slightly yellow? I'm guessing this mix is not non acidic, and it will yellow whatever subtance you use it on? thx alot! :)
I mostly use mix for laminating, usually paper. By laminating I mean adhering 2 large flat things such as paper to paper, paper to board, cloth to board, etc. The gold standard for paper conservation work is pure starch adhesive because it is chemically non-reactive and reversible. The PVA/EVA I use is Evasol which is specifically made as a conservation grade adhesive. But most consumer PVAs designed for paper are fine for the vast majority of jobs. A mix made of one of these PVAs and paste, either MC or starch, will be close to pH neutral and will not cause acid burn or degradation.
I highly recommend people starting out using paste or mix when putting down endpapers (the paste down). It is too easy to mess up a book at this very last step. Using paste or mix provides an opportunity to correct a mistake.
An example of laminating paper to paper is in the made endpaper. Sorry about the loud music, this was one of my earliest videos. It is also an example of where I mix up a small quantity of starch paste and PVA, rather than MC, in my fancy Japanese bowl.
ua-cam.com/video/4vN5xSY86iw/v-deo.html
It’s not just me that does not see decomposing paper when using paste or mix. These have been the standard adhesives for bookbinders for hundreds of years. Everything decomposes with enough time. The question is how this can be slowed. The best evidence bookbinders have is that these are the best adhesives to use to slow this process.
Regarding yellowing, I’m not sure why you think starch paste or PVA/EVA would cause yellowing. Flour paste is avoided in paper conservation work because the gluten is known to cause the adhesive to go yellow with age. But prior to refined starch being available this was what all paste was made of and most books made prior to say the 18th century are evidence of the quality of flour paste.
For covering a book in leather, I mostly use straight paste. There are some occasions I will use PVA/EVA in a less traditional approach.
Hope this helps. It’s been useful for me as I’ve been working on a script for a video on the use of adhesives in bookbinding.
All the best, DAS
@@DASBookbinding How about corn starch or boiling rice? Would eithermake conservation quality adhesive? I just thought it would yellow because it's not NON ADIC, or PH neutral, I'm interested in conservation, I know you mentioned rye starch & wheat starch, thx again♥♥☻☺
@@ArtWars314 To answer this, we need to unpack what “conservation quality” is. Maybe we could assume that this means it is an adhesive that a professional conservator would use. In which case a professional conservator will use the most appropriate adhesive for the individual job, and this will be based on lots of research and knowledge. This is why if you look at Talas’ website for conservation adhesives there are heaps that almost no one except conservators have heard of. Maybe the conservator is working on iron-gall ink and needs an adhesive with no water in it and thus uses an adhesive that can use some form of alcohol as the solvent.
But let’s simplify this and say it’s a paper conservator repairing a tear that does not cross text. They are likely to use Jin Shofu starch paste, which is a Japanese wheat starch. Why use this and not Silver Star laundry starch, which I use and is also a refined wheat starch? Because the easiest thing they can control is the adhesive they are using. They want consistency and some form of guarantee of quality.
Will corn starch work? Yes. For fun I’ve extracted starch from potatoes and used it for paste. But now the water is probably more important that the starch. The reality is most tap water is fine. My tap water is slightly alkaline with a pH of about 7.8 which is perfect for many jobs as I know the calcium carbonate in the water acts as a buffering agent. But this would be harmful for some photos which react with alkaline substances. Would a professional conservator use corn starch from the supermarket? Probably not.
A final thing on conservation, knowledge and techniques are as equally important as the materials.
All the best, DAS
@@DASBookbinding I see I see, this is super helpful! ☻☺Very good to know since I'm thinking about diving into some aspect of book making and eventually selling these books that I would hope to be heirlooms sometime in the future♥♥
This info is gold and it's exactly what I'm looking for since I'm new and I'd like learning from people that are experienced like yourself. sorry if some of my questions are stupid but I'm quite new at this and I haven't been able to watch ALL of your videos in entirety. I would love how life is busy so I often just play a playlist of your videos in the background as I go on my day and just LISTEN to your narrative ( I would love to sit and watch with undivided attention but the day is SHORT!)☻☺ so I might miss bits and pieces here and there so sorry if the questions were already covered.
Thank you so much! I find this new hobby fascinating :) Cheers and may the good LORD Jesus keep you joyfully binding! Cheer♥♥
What are the pieces heard in this video, particularly the first two ? I've never heard them before. I tried Jon Sayles's site but it only has guitar pieces. The pieces heard here are piano pieces.
Credits fixed
freemusicarchive.org/music/Brendan_Kinsella/Bachs_Aria_Variata
@@DASBookbinding Thank you, that's amazing! I had never even heard of this pieces before. They are extraordinary! They absolutely sound like Bach but at the same time it is so surprising to find that Bach wrote such pieces.
Do you know if potato starch would work? I have a hard time finding wheat starch in the country I live at
I have tried it and it seemed brittle. Rice starch is commonly used and often easier to find.
@@DASBookbinding dang too bad. I can’t find the rice starch online either, so I might have to go to a Asian store to find it. But I did find a very simple recipe! So I might actually try that first.
Thanks for the reply :))
Does anyone know if cornstarch can be used instead of wheat starch. In my country, Brazil, I can't find wheat starch, but I want to avoid flour paste due to possible stains on bookcloths
Most cornstarch is actually wheat starch - with added marketing. I believe Whitewings (our local brand) cornstarch is actual cornstarch, and I have tried it and I found it a bit brittle. Unless doing paper repair I would just use wheat flour paste. DAS
@@DASBookbinding thank you very much!
Can i use this adhesive for the spine of my book?
Check out my video on bookbinding adhesives for a longer answer, but the short answer would be that I wouldn't except in some very special cases.
@@DASBookbinding thank u sir
Hi, where can I see yours video "Paste in a microwave" ?
I think in the video I say to use a 4:1 ratio of water to starch. Recently I've been using more 5:1. Depends on how wet you want your paste.
ua-cam.com/video/S4tA_WcetxU/v-deo.html
@@DASBookbinding thank you
Oil of clove, how much do you add? it is just a few drops sort of thing?
2 or 3 drops
Can I replace PVA glue with this to glue the spine of the book?
You can, but it is different. Some people say PVA is better because it is flexible. Also the fast drying time of PVA makes working much faster. Tom Conroy talks about this in this paper
cool.culturalheritage.org/coolaic/sg/bpg/annual/v06/bp06-01.html
All the best, DAS
@@DASBookbinding thanks a lot for your quick reply.
I have found bookbinding as a hobby and I am very passionate about it.
I've already done a lot of binding projects and I have just used regular white glue for it. Now I'm really looking forward to using this in my next project.
I also have a old paperback whose pages have started to fall apart, that I want to repair. So I needed a strong, flexible (archival quality) adhesive that will hold it together the book. Most people on the internet suggest using PVA glue, but that is not easily accessible where I live. So I was wondering, can this be a viable alternative in such a case.
Again, thanks a lot for taking the time to reply, I have got to learn a lot from your channel. Please keep posting such amazing videos..
@@abbashaidari8313 Yep, I understand. So before PVA bookbinders used animal protein glues. And these are still good glues and are often used in conservation work, and general work for that matter. It is just a bit more inconvenient because it needs to be kept warm. I bet you have access to eating gelatine. This will make a good glue for double fan and spine adhesive. I think I use half a teaspoon to 60ml of water (it's written on the jar I use which is in the bindery). Mix hot and let cool to warm to use. Keep warm or it sets. If you can get hide glue this is good too. All the best, DAS
Has anyone used the food grade wheat starches vs the Lineco brand one? There’s a dramatic price difference and wondering if the Lineco is worth it. (The food grade ones I’m finding on Amazon/US seem to be packaged for Middle East/Asian market, so I can’t really tell much about them… and the laundry starches I’m finding don’t specify what type of starch it is, and say ‘pre-gelatinized’. Do we want gelatin? I’m thinking no?)
I tried making some with cornstarch just bc I had it on hand, and it LOOKS just like what’s in the video, at least after I watered it down a bit. Started at a 3:1 ratio based on another recipe, and it didn’t so much ‘thicken’ as ‘congeal into a gelatinous mass’, so I added an additional part of water while still on the stove, then a 5th part after it cooled, and strained it through cheesecloth to mix that in well. (So ended up at a 5:1 ratio.) Used tea tree oil, bc again, had it on hand, and I’m working on ‘student projects’ where I don’t care so much about archival quality. Very happy with the result - not sure how it compares to DAS’s, but it seems almost identical to the Nori Paste I’ve purchased.
No, Lineco is not worth it. Different starch based adhesives from Talas are much cheaper. Yes, people have used different starches for, well forever. I've experimented with plenty just for fun too. Just for the hell of it one day I decided to extract starch from potatoes and turn it into glue. Pre-gelatinized is what the instant pastes are made of. The paste is made, probably vacuum dried and powdered again. But I think the best thing to do is buy 1lb of methyl cellulose from Talas and that will last for years, and the made up adhesive will last for ages. Good luck! DAS
Thanks Darryn. I note that in Australia a tablespoon is 20ml whereas elsewhere it is only 15ml. My measure said 15ml so I scaled up - and I wound up with a glutinous lumpy mess. Try try again...!
Sorry. I forgot about that. That was the Williams Sonoma tablespoon we got while living in WI. DAS
Does corn starch work as a good paste?
The are different types of starches and they don’t all work as well. I’ve tried corn flour and thought it was very brittle. But others have told me it work. Unless you are going paper repair just use wheat flour - unless you’re celiac.
Which starch we want to use
I use wheat starch. Rice works well too. Others you are on your own.
0:58 So an antipodean tablespoon is 133% of a european one? Interesting. Kind of like the german carpenter’s square I have that has English inches divided into sixths and twelfths instead of eights and sixteenths. Is the teaspoon still 5 mL? 🧐🤔
Quarter of a tablespoon. So, yes 5ml.:)
I haven’t been able (in not that dedicated a search) to find clove oil. Do you think tea tree oil would work as a preservative, given its antiseptic properties?
I get the cloves oil at the chemist (well, the last bottle I got was over 3 years ago). Just a small bottle but it will last a long time. I image tea tree oil will work too. Some people might be uneasy introducing a chemical with unknown long term effects. But the quantity is so small it is very low risk. The cloves oil has been used for so long by so many people it can't be doing any harm or it would have been noticed. All the best, Darryn
Is this glue archival quality?
Check out my video about adhesives for bookbinding. This will explain the difference between glue and paste and why the term archival doesn't really mean much. But short answer is that this paste has excellent long term characteristics and refined starch paste is the choice of conservators for paper repair. DAS
@@DASBookbinding amazing, thank you!
@@DASBookbinding please advise what is the lightest weight paper we can use for printing photos, and still be able to do drum style bookbinding?
can i substitute flour for the starch and coconut oil for the oil??
Yes, wheat flour for general adhesive. Same ratio. But not for paper repair where you can see the dry paste. The gluten will go slightly yellow with age. No oil needed. DAS
@@DASBookbinding 🥰🥰🥰tnxxxx🥰🥰🥰
hi man just want to ask for the ingridients tho tnxxx🥰
1 part starch to 5 parts water by volume. Optional is a few drops of oil of cloves as a preservative. DAS
@@DASBookbinding thnxxxxx soo much now i can make ittt😍😍
Casually has a $2000 mixer as an option lmao
Did I mention how unhappy I was about my wife buying it, until I realised it was the ultimate paste maker:) I figure I'll never get one of those Japanese horse hair sieves - without selling one of the children anyway.
I can’t find clove oil near me. Are there any alternatives that won’t ruin the paste?
Darryn Schneider Ok great! Thanks so much for your quick reply.
This question is from forever ago, but I was wondering if tea tree or lavender oil might work. When I searched for the properties of clove oil, anti-bacterial came up, which I’m guessing is what makes it work as a preservative? Both tea tree and lavender oil are supposed to have anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties, so I’m thinking they’d serve the same purpose.
@@courtneychase4003 thanks so much!
@@courtneychase4003 thanks so much!
Peppermint oil also has anti-microbial and anti-fungal qualities, and might smell better. I haven’t tried even making paste yet, so can’t say it they work, but I’d guess they should all be pretty easy to find.