Here's a no doubt silly question :-) I find that I can hardly open some of my older books now without the spine cracking, and a few pages falling out. I was just wondering if there's anything that can be done to prevent this, without boxing them up in the loft, or something. I was considering rubbing some kind of oil on the back, in the hope that it might soak in over time, and make the glue a bit more flexible again. But if course, it also might just make it all gooey, and the pages might be even more likely to fall out.
Has anyone else found anything that makes their paperbacks last a bit longer?
This issue is definitely a pain in the dong, along with publishers having used non-acid-free paper in the past. My solution is to try only to buy properly bound books, although those become harder to find as the years go by.
I buy paperbacks simply because I need to maximise shelf space :-) I don't mind them getting a bit scruffy, but having the pages fall out definitely spoils one's enjoyment.
Paperbacks are mainly "perfect bound". Which means the pages are stacked together and cut with a guillotine and then a thick layer of PVA type glue is applied to the back. Once this has dried then a thicker sheet making up the front cover, spine, and back cover will be folded and glued onto the spine.
For this reason its always necessary to be very careful when opening (and reading) paperback books, in fact they should never be opened fully, as can be sewn books. Basically if there are any creases on the spine then that book has been opened too far.
While sections with photographs or other illustrations as can be found in many paperbacks can present problems of their own
Most likely many people reading paperback books don't appreciate this or abide by these conditions. Which are only mainly of interest to people who collect books. The majority of paperbacks which can be bought second hand in good uncreased condition have most likely never been read.
As to your question there's no real solution. In the past when buying a reading copy of a scare non fiction paperback title I've had to settle for a copy with a badly cracked spine and loose pages. From experience I found its well nigh impossible to glue on a supplementary spine. Possibly with access to a combined bookbinding press and power guillotine it might be possible, but otherwise not. Unless you wanted to take up a new hobby, at least.
Yes, I've always been rather careful in that sense; and it made me stop lending books to other people. But the cracks are becoming harder to avoid in the older books. They have become rather brittle.
Strangely enough Penguins and Pelicans from the 30's are still fine. But then instead of their being perfect bound, the pages of those were formed as folded sections which were then glued together. So its impossible for individual pages to fall out. For thinner ones they were even stapled through next to the spine, before the cover was glued on.
The glue used was presumably tried and tested whereas once they started experimenting with PVA and similar glues the results were variable; although I can't say I've found any problems myself.
Nowadays even hardback - or rather "case bound" books can be perfect bound rather than stitched. A nototrious example of this is the large format hardback "U-Boat/Boot War/Kreig" published both in Germany and the UK but printed in the US which is a fully illustrated documentary account of Buchheim's actual mission on U96; on which the film and novel "Das Boot" was based. Where there was obviousy a problem with the glue given the propensity for odd pages to fall out. However given that the number of U-Boat nuts who are also avid book collectors is probably strictly limited, this is hardly an earth shattering revelation.
Paper is another thing. Pre war Penguins can be found still, with cream coloured pages at the worst. During wartime things deteriorated a bit obviously. Brown flecks, sandpapar texture etc etc. And yet even today Faber and Faber are regularly using paper for both their h/b's and p/b's which can be almost guarenteed to have gone brown within a couple of years.
That's interesting. I've done similar things in the past (as have, I guess, most people), but have not really cared how good it looked afterwards. I just wanted to keep the things together.
You can't. My limited knowledge of the subject suggests that any type of degradation in plastics of all kinds, is to all intents and purposes irreversible. The only remedy is to try and prevent further degradation by say painting plastic objects subject to UV.
Angle grinder. I had this problem. I clamped the book between bits of wood and ground the glue off with an angle grinder. I then rubbed in silicon gunge to the ground edge, let set and then put on more silicon. Still intact but hasn't been used much. Evostick might have been better but it seems to have disappeared these days.
No way back in the 80s, when CP/M was even running on the Spectrum, Locomotive made a manual for the system and Locomotive Basic. Within about 3 weeks the pages started to fall out. its some kind of almost stringy glue. I'm not convinced that paperback glue was ever any good. I used to have them when I was at school to read when the sports were being done, and even then pages fell out, heck some hardbacks did too if they were of the rough paper kind. It could be that it relies on the glue getting into the paper and some paper is better than other paper. I remember though that some kind of glue could be applied, but you had to destroy the spine which then made it a little difficult to tell what the book was. Brian
I bind up large-ish 'books', made from sheets of A4 paper (printed manuals etc) with a 'double fan binding press'. This is basically a jig used to hold the paper 'block' which you bend it first one way (and brush the glue on), and then the other way (again, brushing the glue on). In this way a small part of the edge of each sheet (a small fraction of a mm) is coated with the glue, as well as the very edge.
When combined with a strip of 'super' (thin muslin), I have used ordinary PVA perfectly successfully for long-lasting, well-used tomes. It's a bit like the binding style O'Reilly use for their computer books, if you know them.
I also occasionally re-bind paperbacks like this, although it is best to cut back to fresh paper at the spine. Of course to then lose the spine part of the cover, or have to cut it off and re-attach it. You really also need a 'plough press' to do this neatly.
You can buy special bookbinding PVA, but I have never found the need. In fact the cheap tubs of PVA sealant seem to work fine as well.
There is at least one plan for a double fan binding press on the web, but I can't find it at the moment. If you look at a few pictures I am sure you can work it out.
Another idea, for 'at risk' paperbacks, is to make a few saw cuts across the spine, about the depth of a piece of cotton string (1.5mm)? you then soak some short lengths of said cotton in slightly thinned, PVA, and bed them into the cuts. When the glue has dried you cut back the edges.
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