The Framers Forum

For those who have used Nori premade wheat paste in small envelopes, sad news. The product has been discontinued due to weak sales. He was selling less than 1,000 packets a month - worldwide.

Oh dear! I use it - I'll have to panic-buy from Lion! They do a wheatstarch paste you can mix yourself which I THINK can be kept in the fridge for a while, have to check.

Thanks for the info.

Hi John,

Russell Bookcrafts do their own ready to use starch paste which keeps at room temperature almost for ever. Is acid free and reversible with water. I used to use it as a bookbinder and still do my current tub is at least 4 years old and has not gone off.
Cheers,
Mark

Not your average framer wrote: Russell Bookcrafts do their own ready to use starch paste which keeps at room temperature almost for ever. Is acid free and reversible with water. I used to use it as a bookbinder and still do my current tub is at least 4 years old and has not gone off.

What type of preservatives are in it? No starch paste should last that long, refrigerated or not.

I don't know what they put in it, but my understanding was that it is an archivally approved preservative. It does have a mild chemical odour, which I don't recognise.
Cheers,
Mark

Hey Mark - reckon your supplier's claims are about to be shot to bits!

Roboframer wrote:Lion .... do a wheatstarch paste you can mix yourself which I THINK can be kept in the fridge for a while, have to check.

No they don't! they do two different pastes - one comes made up and is ethylene-vinyl acetate co-polymer emulsion (phew!)

The other is a powder you mix - water-soluble polyvinyl alcohol & cellulose ether.

John,

500gm wheat paste powder

http://www.conservation-by-design.co.uk ... ers43.html

you don't need the other stuff.

Thanks for that Jerry - these people are practically next door to Arqadia - one of the UK's premier moulding suppliers!

Roboframer wrote:Hey Mark - reckon your supplier's claims are about to be shot to bits!

Maybe, but the've been selling it a long time and as most bookbinding work is restoring and repairing valuable old and antique books, I can't imagine that people would use it if it was considered suspect. The cost of paste is nothing compared to the cost of everything else in a business where penny pinching is the last consideration.
Cheers,
Mark

Found this in my favourites - if you search for 'paste' there are a couple of good ones and all the gear you need too.

preservation equipment

My method of making wheat paste is to use a microwave oven.

I use a glass jar filled with 15ml of water and the powdered paste(one teaspoon). I set the timer to 10 seconds and heat - then stir a bit with a wood craft stick(ice cream stick). I repeat the process as needed until the paste cooks(changes to a semi transparent color). This is usually three heating cycles. I sift the cooked paste through a tea strainer to remove any lumps and then use.

I learned this technique from an art conservator at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC.

A friend who is still a bookbinder informs me that most of these ready mixed pots of paste contain both water and iso-propanol (alchohol). The alchohol will kill any fungal growth as long as it exceeds a certain minimum concentration. The alchohol does not so easily evaporate when mixed with the paste, if the lid is not left off for un-necessarily extended periods.

Apparently this method of preserving the paste is quite well known in many larger bookbinding concerns who've been doing this for years. It is claimed that since all of the alchohol will evaporate without residue as the paste dries this is the basis for believing that this is an achivally safe method of preservation of the paste. I will be thinking cafefully about the validity of using the paste in question in future, as I am unsure of it's implications. Any comments?
Cheers,
Mark

I'm not qualified really - but the bit I'd prick my ears up at would be 'have been doing this for years'

1000 packets of Nori a month worldwide a month seems like a very small sales figure you would think that number would be sold in the USA alone. Must be because framers are not using it, but some other product. I'm not an expert on archival pastes either but having working in a laboratory for 21 years it looks like Jerome's method is the right one, stripped back to the use of powered paste and water with out anything else. The only drawback is that the shelf life of the paste is only a few days, then mould and bacteria will start to grow. Using alchohol will preserve the paste or a fungicide like used in wallpaper paste will do the same job, but I dont think the paste is archival anymore. In any mixture alchohol will evaporate, but I dont believe that it does not leave behind trace elements. It was one of the reasons that Nori Paste was made by Frame Tec. A product that was archival and vacuum packed so as to preserve it and ready to use out of the package.

Somewhere in the link I gave above it says that mould growth can be scraped off and it will be Ok underneath. But even then I suppose you cant' do that too often.

Sems a good idea to be organised and make small amounts intended to last just for the working day.