What is papermaking?
I guide you through the practical process of making paper.
Do not forget to breathe in and out. Have fun!
Part 1: Making pulp
Equipment: bucket, (hand)blender, old paper
Process: use printer paper without too much ink on it. Ink turns everything grey, and it is
unhealthy to put your hands in, while making paper. Glossy magazine paper or newspaper is
unsuitable either! Tear the paper into small pieces. Add 20 grams of shredded paper (5 x A4)
to 1 liter of water and macerate it in the blender. It is useful to soak the shredded paper the
night before.
Equipment: a stainless steel or ceramic pan, cooker or hotplate, household soda (NaHCO3)
or cleaning soda (Na2CO3) are both fine, sieve or colander with cloth layer, ladle blender or
hammer and wooden board, 1 kg of wet plant residue. Use fiber-rich scraps, such as
eggplant and asparagus peels, cabbage stems and veins, tomato crowns and branches, leek
trimmings, dry onion skins and garlic peel.
Process: Boil the vegetable matter in household soda (10 grams per liter water). Soft fibers
are ready in half an hour, firm fibers can take up to 4-8 hours or need twice the amount of
soda, or even both. Rinse the plant pulp until the water runs clear. After this process, the
fiber may already be a pulp. Sometimes additional maceration is required using a blender or
hammer. Very stiff fibers (nettles, lily stems, asparagus peels) require a hollander beater
machine.
Through a larger-scale papermaking workshop you may find access to a hollander beater, a
machine designed to chop textiles into a slurry with metal blades. It was first developed in
the Netherlands, Holland in 1680.
Equipment: Hollander, fiber-macerating machine, used fabric
Process: Cut the fabric into 2 x 2 cm pieces and macerate them into fine fibers in the
hollander for 2-4 hours.
Part 2: Making the mould and deckle
Equipment: 2 same-size picture frames, 1 mesh screen (such as window screening), stapler
with non-rusting staples (brass or steel)
Process: Stretch the mesh over one frame and staple it to the frame’s outside edge. This
forms the mould. The other frame is the deckle.
Part 3: Making the paper
Equipment: Large plastic tub (big enough to fit the mould inside), water, cup measure
(0.25L), pulp, mould and deckle, tray, foam rubber or dishcloths (larger than your mould),
wooden boards, ratchet straps, a press or some heavy books, clothesline, and pegs.
Fill the tub – your ‘scooping vat’ – with lukewarm water and start by emptying 5
cups of pulp into the scooping vat. Stir the solution thoroughly.
Immerse the mould and the deckle: hold the two frames tightly together with the screen
frame (mould) underneath with the mesh facing upwards. The second frame (deckle) on top.
Immerse them vertically downwards along the edge of the vat until you reach the bottom,
then let it ‘land’ horizontally.
Still holding tight, gently lift the frames out of the pulp solution. Let the excess water drip
out. Remove the deckle and tilt the mould with the pulp to let the last water drip out. Now
take it to the couching area.
The term ‘couching’ comes from the French verb ‘se coucher’, meaning to lay down or sleep.
Place a piece of foam rubber or a pile of dishcloths on your tray. Lay a couching cloth on top.
Turn the mould and pulp over, onto the cloth. Through the mesh, press the moist layer of
pulp onto the couching cloth in a smooth movement from one side to the other and lift off
the mould.
Onto the wet sheet of pulp, you can apply flat decorations, splash colored pulp, or apply pre-
printed texts or words torn from newspapers. Use water-absorbent materials that preferably
have serrated or thorn edges to aid adhesion.
You can stack couching cloths and pulp sheets to about ten layers high, then place the stack
of couching cloths between two boards for pressing.
The stack must be pressed slowly. The water should flow smoothly from the wet sheets. If
you press too fast or too hard, the drained water may take fibers with it and your sheet of
paper will no longer be as it was scooped.
If you have a press: Place the stack and boards into the press and gently tighten, increasing
the pressure every five minutes until completely tight. Leave it from half an hour to
overnight. Then remove the stack to dry.
If you do not have a press: Use one or two ratchet straps and two wooden boards. Gently
tighten them. Put the tray underneath to catch the water. The water should be squeezed out
of the stack slowly but surely.
One by one, take the couching cloths with the sheets of paper on them from the stack. Peg
each cloth to the clothesline or clothes rack, ensuring the peg doesn’t touch the paper. Dry
the paper and cloth together. When they are dry, carefully separate them. If the sheets curl,
you can press them flat, individually or in a stack, between two dry boards or beneath a pile
of books.
Alternatively take the wet sheet off the cloth and apply it flat to a piece of wood or glass
(such as a window). The sheets will take on the structure of the substrate. If you do not put
the sheets of paper in the press, but let it air dry on the couching cloth, the sheets will take
on a different structure.
You have made your own sheets of paper now: if you do not like your artworks, you can
reprocess them in the pulp. This completes the circle.
“ Each piece of paper starts a new, fresh life.”
What can you turn into paper?
You can create so many interesting products with paper, here are a couple of ideas that I thought are interesting.
If you understand that paper is made of cellulose, you can imagine that every material that contains cellulose is part of the research for paper making. So yes, you can make paper from plants, but we have a few kinds of plants that give good quality paper. For those we are looking for.
As long as jeans are made of cotton we can make lovely paper from it. It is the historical fiber of the European paper.
Well, yes, these are our resources nowadays for making paper. We all have old paper in the house. just 2 tips: do not use newspapers as they are full of toxic ink, and the cheap paper that is used for our advertising leaflets do not have a lot of fibers either. So experiment with the paper you have hanging around at home.
Why should you start papermaking?
It is fun!
Working with your hands, playing with water, hearing the sound of dripping water, smelling the fibers and seeing the colors is a continuous sensory adventure.
When we start mining our waste, the papermaking technique comes back everywhere in the field. It is time for more research to create new materials.
I teach and help people to create new ideas and materials for their projects.
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