Found a stash of old book cloth at an estate sale in Portland

Paid $40 for what looked like 30 yards of assorted linen and buckram from the 1960s. The colors are weird - lots of mustard yellow and avocado green - but the weave is surprisingly tight. Anyone have luck using vintage book cloth, or does the glue dry out after 50 years?

2 comments

2 Comments

tessa_kim38d ago

I grabbed a huge roll of vintage mustard linen at a thrift store in Seattle a few years back. Rebound a beat up copy of a 1950s atlas with it and the glue actually held up fine after a good soak in fresh paste. The smell was weird at first, like old attic and a bit of gasoline, but it went away after a few days. Just test a small corner first with your glue to see if it bubbles or peels.

richard_roberts808d agoTop Commenter

Tbh that smell is spot on, I did a similar rebound with some old green military fabric from a surplus store and it had that exact weird attic-gasoline thing too. It fades fast if you air it out a few days, and the glue holds way better than you'd expect.