Wallpaper Paste

[thiambal]

What is the best adhesive / paste to use to hand lining paper on a lime plaster wall?

I have been through the past posts and seen references to not using 'nasty impervious stuff'....

but what should you use?

 

[thiambal]

And can you use limewash successfully over lining paper......

The walls are not good enough to paint without lining first and I am keen to use a non-plastic non-poluting paint.

(Oh and if I cannot match the Laura Ashley Sage Green colour that my wife is currently specifiying - I will be in trouble)

 

[Nigel Watts]

Flour and water paste is the traditional material for hanging paper. The last time I bought a roll of paper from Coles it contained a receipe, but i have long since lost it.

 

[Lime]

Tub paste.

http://tinyurl.com/jzv9q

 

[Nemesis]

I recall flour and water paste from my childhood, but it can go mouldy and it's nothing like as good in use as modern pastes - Polycell or Solvite. Bugs and things used to feed on it too which was a problem.

Painting over lining paper means a strong solution of glue is required to stick it to the walls, especially at the edges, but don't attempt anything PVA.

I haven't tried to lime wash over lining, but I have used simple emulsion.

Give some of the trad or small scale 'alternative' paint manufacturers such as Potmolen, Nutshell Ecos or Rose of Jericho a ring and see what they can come up with?


http://www.grownupgreen.org.uk/features/?id=428

 

[NT]

Modern wallpaper paste.

NT

 

[Lime]

Modern wallpaper paste.

NT

Yes I agree.

I realise, on reflection, that my previous post might have been taken to recommend tub paste. However the post was in direct response to the flour and water post above it and I had a link to the Cole and Son website that sell tub paste for their wallpaper.
From memory I believe their tub paste has chemicals in it to prevent the "hotel" for mites and creepy crawlies that flour and water provide.
Modern wallpaper paste is not recommended when using their paper.

 

[Nigel Watts]

If you add some alum to flour and water paste it will provide some resistance to fungus. Flour and water paste is very effective and will not give any problems unless the house is very damp.

It is traditionally used in bookbinding as well as in paper hanging. Any good bookbinder will tell you that flour and water paste in infinitely superior to modern cellulose type pastes (similar to modern wallpaper pastes). A good binding using flour and water paste can last for centuries.

Modern paste will clearly be fine for most paper hanging purpses, but I would only ever use flour and water for a good quality paper.

 

[thiambal]

Cheers Nemisis - will do.

I assume from the collected posts that there is no negative impact in terms of damage to plaster or breathability from using moderns pastes.

 

[Nemesis]

Don't eat 'em as they contain fungicide. Give the edges a particularly good pasting. You don't want 'em lifting when wet by the paint.

 

[plumbers mate]

In bookbinding you could use flour and water paste but it goes mouldy fairly quickly - so you have to get a ready mixed type of paste that has a fungicide in it - your leather bound books would go off otherwise.
I assume that they used to have something to use as a fungicide in centuries past but don't know what it was.

 

[Nigel Watts]

I have bound several books, including one in three quarters leather and one in full leather (the latter incorporating a design of decorative pared leather onlays) under the supervision of an experienced professional bookbinder. On her recommendation I used only pure flour and water paste for attaching the leather and leather onlays and for laying down the endpapers. I can assure you that there has been no deterioration in any of my books.

I wallpapered my late father's study with a Coles paper using pure flour and water paste in about 1980. When the room was redecorated earlier this year after a quarter of a century the paste showed no signs of failure, nor of any infestation with either fungus or insects.

In other words my personal experience does not support the contention that flour and water paste is inferior to modern pastes in terms of durability. I quite accept however that other people may have had a different experience.

 

[Nemesis]

Bookbinding Glue

1 packet unflavoured gelatine

3 Tablespoons. boiling water

1 Tablespoon vinegar

1 Teaspoon glycerine


Add gelatine to water. Stir until dissolved. Add vinegar and glycerine. Stir until well mixed. Makes about 1/3 cup.

Binds leather-to-leather or gluing cloth to cardboard for notebook binders or scrapbooks.


Library Paste (Bookbinding glue)

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. alum

4 cups water

Oil of cloves

Mix all ingredients in saucepan and cook until clear and thick. Add 30 drops of Oil of cloves and store covered.


So there are possibly variations - although I suspect plain flour and water was often used in the past. Conservation work and repair work will have different requirements, as will normal hardback library binding and re-binding.

My brother studied bookbinding as a profession - I think the glues used varied according to which parts you were gluing to what. Books don't like damp and insects can be very fond of books.


For putting up lining paper and then painting on top I think I'd go for a more modern adhesive though. It does work as I can testify.

Mike Wye sells a paste which may be an alternative though!
http://www.mikewye.co.uk/BiofaWallpaperPasteTech.htm

There's a recipe here for flour and water paste witha spot of alum:

http://www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects/diy_waxes.htm#Wallpaper%20paste::

And an article about historic wallpapers and conservation:

http://www.vam.ac.uk/res_cons/conservation/journal/number_50/pugin/index.html

And another about insects which eat wallpaper and bookbinding pastes:

http://www.the-piedpiper.co.uk/th2c.htm

Not nice!

 

[BMcD]

if you use flour and water paste, use self raising flour as this will allow the paper to hang its self. but steer clear of spring water or you'll be bouncing off the walls. As for insects then perhaps this paper will be appropriate
http://www.timorousbeasties.co.uk/mod_1/pages/mod_1.5/pages/index.php?request=detail&item_id=195