Pulp Friction

So my love of fountain pens is already well documented in these pages.

Oh wait – sorry: yes, yes, I’m still alive. Fine, yes, and you? Good, good…

Right, now we’ve got the “where have you been?” re-introductions out of the way, shall we carry on? Well, I am anyway. You are, as ever, free to select your own destiny.

So anyway… fountain pens. Well documented. Hereabouts. Blah, blah.

Fountain pens typically require paper upon which to use them. Admittedly there are those amongst us who collect pens for their esthetics as objets d’art rather than utilitarian items of everyday correspondence, but I’m not one (neither such a collector or, indeed, an objet d’art). I am however a lover of books, the whole amazing concept of public libraries, inter-library loans, and the ability to soak up knowledge in a much richer more visceral way than clicking on Google – though I don’t deny its use or social impact.

A recent foray into the library supplied me with books on letterpress printing and more recently papermaking. Much like the urban tale of kids being asked where milk comes from and replying “the supermarket”, I think many of us have little concept of where the written word comes from. The advent of computers and desktop printers have provided us with instant, selective documentation, and moved us ever further from needing or even wanting to know where such old fashioned items as books or magazines actually come from.

Despite the meteoric rise in Kindle/Kobo readers, streaming news services, and short run digital presses for print on demand books, there is still an incredible amount of good “old fashioned” printing done.

Like the renewed interest in fountain pens, vinyl records, real books and even unpasteurised milk, there is a renewed interest in handmade paper.

And I read some books about it.

And I decided it sounded perfect for a new obsession: it’s messy, straightforward so even a man can do it, you can start small with a few cheap/found items, and did I mention messy?

Not engine oil and spark plugs on the living room carpet messy – more just water everywhere and getting in the way at meal preparation time in the kitchen messy.

There are plenty of online and printed sources so I won’t bore you with too much repetition of “how to…”, just the bits I enjoyed. Considering it’s been around in various forms for a couple of thousand years or more, I think it’s pretty well documented now. As with many such products, it’s been invented countless times in different places in slightly different but essentially similar ways.

Pulp

Paper is made from cellulose fibres that can be derived from many different natural products… even the weeds in your garden. Depending on the source the fibres may be long, short or a mixture. Much of the professional paper making art goes into careful control of the fibres to ensure consistent, useful paper for its given use (anything from tracing paper, kitchen roll, writing paper, newsprint, cardboard, you name it…)

Back in the day, the fibres were made from scratch by cooking, treating with alkali and beating the living daylights out of several types of plant. These days the enthusiast can buy sheets of pre-prepared pulp to skip this time consuming, and frankly spouse-annoying step. Or you can go as far as I did and just use old discarded paper. It’s plainly got suitable paper-making fibres… it’s already paper!

My rule of thumb is to pour a large Mason jar of water into a normal kitchen blender (when Mrs E isn’t watching), and then select a piece of paper about 1.5 times the area of the paper I’m trying to make (or multiple pieces up to the same area). I’ve used old receipts, envelopes, post-it notes, kitchen towel (wet, but not greasy)… pretty much anything.

A few notes:

• Sugar paper/construction paper is not recommended. The dye in it is cheap and easily released onto pretty much everything you use/touch/think about. Even if you make a half decent sheet of paper… it’ll quickly fade. I’m not saying don’t use it… just be aware of the downsides.
• If you’re using old envelopes or Post-it notes… discard the gummed part before you begin. They’ll blend up apparently OK, but will leave snotty little balls on your equipment and the dissolved gum can make the paper hard to release from the mould later.
• Be kind to your blender. Put the water in first. Tear up the paper into smallish pieces and don’t overload the blender. Remove any strings or stables, plastic windows, etc. Also: they’re not paper!
• Though I haven’t tried it yet, it might be an idea to shred your paper before adding it to the blender.
• Newspaper ink is often oil based… and will leave a slimy stain on everything you use. There’s a modern move towards soya based inks, but don’t risk it. If you’re using newsprint for your pulp – try and trim off the outer print-free borders. Newsprint uses cheap wood-based paper and will make poor paper… but it’s easy to find and fine for trying things out before you graduate to archive quality museum paper.
• Laser printed papers – such as many bills (if you’ve not gone electronic) – will work fine, but the print can leave an interesting speckled effect on the finished result. Not good or bad, just be aware.
• Many other hand-written inks will dissolve away into the water and leave only the paper’s own colour in your pulp.

So – water in first, suitable amount of relatively small pieces of paper. Leave it a while, or swirl it around to soak the paper a bit (you can do this offline before you add it if you’re not as lazy as me). Lid on. Hit go.

Now… remember how I said the fibres can be long or short? The relative amount of those fibres will impact the strength and other features of your paper. If you’re taking this seriously, record what type of papers you blended and for how long. The longer you blend the pulp, the more the blender will chop up the longer fibres. Also the fibres in the starting paper can only get shorter. Newsprint contains a lot of recycled paper fibre that has already been round the game a few times already. The fibres are already short and will tend to make brittle paper if used exclusively. They can be mixed with longer fibres to improve the final pulp though.

Start by pulsing or blending for a few seconds at a time, followed by longer sessions. The aim is to get a smooth, clump-free pulp. Unless you want it for esthetic reasons, you shouldn’t be able to see any identifiable chunks of the original papers. If you used different colours, they should all be blended into a smooth pulp now. If you like, you can now add a small amount of fresh paper and blend for a short period to deliberately add fragments of more identifiable paper – cartoons, crosswords, a different colour, etc.

Depending how impatient you are (or if you’ve been evicted from the kitchen) you can store the pulp in the fridge for about a week. This will slow any mould growth from the now liberated bacteria-friendly fibres. I’ve found the pulp stays in suspension for several days, but if it settles out, just agitate it gently before you use it for making paper.

Pulp from a half sheet of printed computer paper and a 20cm strip of coloured art paper.

Deckle/Mould

A mould is a frame with mesh or fine wires stretched over it – a screen. The gaps are small enough to trap the pulp but let the excess water seep through. A deckle is a simple frame that fits on top of the mould’s screen and provides a boundary beyond which the pulp can’t escape while the water is seeping through the screen. It essentially defines the size of the paper you’re making.

There are a few ways of bringing this about and these are variations on the theme as used in eastern, western and other styles of paper making. In essence though, you can either have a large container of pulp, into which you dip the deckle/mould and extract a deckle’s worth of pulp for the sheet; or you can sit the deckle/mould in a bath of water (so the screen is submerged but the top of the deckle is still clear of the water) and pour a sheet’s worth of pulp onto the screen, then lift the deckle/mould straight up to let the pulp settle on the screen.

Both work, and both have advantages. I’m limited for space and my “vat” is just a small plastic bowl so I use the latter “pour” method for now. I can control exactly how much pulp goes onto the screen, and experiment with paper thicknesses more readily.

A crude deckle/mould made from some offcut wood and a Dollar Store fry splash shield

Pressing

When water has stopped dripping by gravity from the mould, you can encourage further water loss by pressing the top of the new sheet with a sponge or other absorbent item. Gently remove the deckle, then place another screen over the top of the paper, similar to that on the mould (but not attached to anything). I use a Dollar Store frying pan splash guard. It’s a 12″ wire mesh with a convenient handle. Then gently press the paper with a sponge to extract further water. Squeeze and repeat until no more water is being removed.

Sponging some of the water from the top surface. Using a screen to help not disturb the newly formed paper

Then slowly flip the mould over so the newly formed (and still very wet) sheet of paper is on a smooth absorbent cloth, known as a felt… but typically actually wool or synthetic absorbent material. I used Dollar Store super-absorbent stringettes cloths intended for washing cars with. They’re artificial fibres and have a very smooth surface. The paper will take on any texture in the cloths you use for this step, so you can use this to your advantage and deliberately use ribbed cloths or even place thin items such as string between the cloth and the paper to leave an impression on the final product.

Cover with another absorbent cloth, or if you have high hopes of using the paper for writing, use a super smooth surface such as a new plastic sheet (sold in Dollar Stores as a cutting board, but a fraction of a mm in thickness). Then place a couple of other absorbent felts/cloths on top for padding and press the paper. I use a large book to spread the weight evenly, then a couple of 30lb free weights to do the actual pressing.

This step helps the fibres knit and the slow expulsion of water helps the paper form.

How long?! Well… it depends. The paper will not get anywhere near dry at this stage, but overnight will help the paper form strong bonds and be relatively flat.

Ready for pressing on the “felts”

Drying

You can speed things up by simply ironing the wet paper by placing a smooth cloth over it and ironing on a high heat (with no steam!) Quick, but will make weak paper as the bonds don’t have time to form and the resulting paper can tend to curl as the fibres were forced to shrink in the sudden heat.

A better way though, is to press as above, then remove the weight and replace the felts with new dry felts and place a much lighter weight – just the book in my case – and leave for several days to let the fibres naturally dry under mild pressure. This will keep the papers flat, and will retain that smooth surface if you used plastic during the pressing (no longer needed in drying phase).

Sizing

Sizing is the addition of chemicals such as corn starch or gelatin either during pulp making or after the paper is complete in order to make the surface less absorbent and easier to write on. I’ve not tried yet… let me know if you have!

As ever – I’d love to hear your own experiences in the comments below.

Once you get the hang of it – let your imagination fly…