Book Binding Glue

LD Davis animal, liquid and hot melt glues have been a staple in the book binding industry for decades. Used during the manufacturing process, our glues can be found in your favorite novel, yearbook, catalog, photo book or cookbook. LD Davis is your single source for all book binding industry glues, offering a wide variety of effective adhesives for every type of bindery operation, from spine gluing magazines to special casing applications and lay-flat lamination. LD Davis glues are used in two main commercial book binding techniques: traditional book binding, which typically produces hardcover books, and perfect binding, which results in seamless paperback books.

Traditional Book Binding (Hard Cover)

Hard cover binding is when a book is made using a hard outside cover or case, which is made in a process called case making. This includes gluing and folding the cover material to the board. The inside of a hard cover book starts with printed sheets that are folded and gathered together. The pages are then sewn or glued into what is called a book block and cloth is added to the spine where it will then be glued into the case. The book block is then glued to the case in a process known as casing in. You’re left with a finished hard cover bound book.

Perfect Binding (Soft Cover)

The perfect binding process is a used to bind soft cover books, such as pulp and trade paperbacks. During this binding process, the pages and cover of a book are glued together at the spine with a strong, flexible glue in a perfect binding machine. This is normally a hot melt or PUR glue that adheres the elements together when cooling. The other three sides of the book are then trimmed to give them perfectly square edges. The soft cover of a perfect bound book is typically made from paper or cardstock that is heavier than the interior pages. The spine of a perfect bound book is usually square and holds the book together with the thermally activated binding process rather than traditional stitching.

Photo Book Binding

Internet-based personal publishing is the fastest growing segment in the book binding industry, and there are many companies that exist to help keep your memories safe by collecting your digital photos and displaying them in a physical book that you can hold. LD Davis can help complete the published photo book process with our photo book glues, applied through traditional binding techniques. Enjoy a photo book built to last with LD Davis glues.

“LD Davis Industries has been a valuable supplier of hot melt to our company for over 15 years. In our foam fabrication business, controlling overhead drives the bottom line. Many of our competitors have moved away from adhesive bonding to go to zero-cost heat bonding for some of our foam substrates. Our years of experience have shown that the hot melt supplied by LD Davis allows us the flexibility and versatility to provide durable, unique solutions to our customer’s needs. Tripp Davis and his team at LD Davis are well aware of the constant overhead and pricing pressures we face, and constantly work to find us the price-to-performance products that our ever-changing business require. Great product only gets you so far if you can’t get it. LD Davis’s ability to handle all aspects of the supply chain-manufacturing, warehousing, and just-in-time delivery gives our company a competitive advantage in our market that we need.”

— Fred, F.P. Woll & Company

“Unipak and LD Davis have been working together for decades, so when we purchased our first Emmeci back in 2000 we asked them to provide the glue for these state of the art machines. Sixteen years later, we are still using glue provided by LD Davis on our Emmeci’s and couldn’t be happier with the product and the company behind the product. We have relied on their technical support to help us bond specialty papers and board and are extremely happy with the everyday performance of their NW123CK glue. Unipak is proud to be a part of LD Davis’s 90 year history and look forward to our continued relationship.”

— Teddy, Unipak