You, too, can make wasp nest paper. Find an abandoned — repeat, abandoned — nest. Usually, a nest is reliably abandoned following a deep freeze. To be safe, collect a nest in freezing weather, seal it in plastic, and keep it in your freezer for a while. After thawing it out, recycle it in a blender as described for any other fiber (see page 4). Recycling affects the wasp’s fiber, though, and your sheet might be weak. If so, either make a thicker sheet or add a percentage of brown grocery sack fibers.
And so we salute the noble wasp. When humans were still scratching on cave walls, the wasp had been making paper for centuries. However, it might be best to send our salute by e-mail rather than by making contact personally.
Recycled Paper Is Not New
Probably no current product has been recycled longer than paper has — for more than 14 centuries. Evidence indicates the Chinese, who invented it, recycled paper in the fourth and fifth centuries. Paper recycling, to varying degrees, has continued ever since. It probably increased whenever a shortage of raw materials occurred and decreased when raw materials were plentiful and inexpensive.
In the Western world, from the twelfth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, all paper was made with recycled fibers. The respected cotton and linen rag papers of old were 100 percent recycled cotton and/or linen rags. Machines literally beat the rags back down to the individual cotton or linen fibers that made up the threads. No other industry has existed so long on 100 percent recycling.
In this book, “recycling” means taking paper (which is essentially a batch of dry fibers), turning it into individual fibers with water and a blender, and making them back into handmade paper. This book seeks to open your mind and eyes to the vast store of valuable papermaking components lying idle in the world’s stores of wastepaper. To think of these fibers as “used” would be like thinking of a new car driven home from a dealer’s showroom as “used” and then throwing it away. A simple fact needs recognition: Wastepaper is not waste fiber.
The paper industry’s finest treasures (not only fibers, but additives and color from dyes) are in wastepaper piles and available to hand papermakers absolutely free. The beautiful three- or four-color handmade sheet that can be made in four minutes by recycling would take days, money, and equipment to make if the papermaker started with new white pulp.
Every different type of paper you recycle gives you a different kind of handmade sheet. This happens because there is a difference between pulp and furnish. Pulp is simply fibers. Furnish is fibers plus additives. Furnish is a recipe of fibers, sizing, fillers, optical brighteners, and so forth. Not much paper is made of just fibers.
Industry spends a lot of time, money, and research, plus testing and evaluating, to arrive at the right furnish. When they use new fibers, they have to find, buy, and properly add all the necessary additives. When you recycle, all the additives have already been selected, added, and paid for. For you, it’s free and only as far away as your wastebasket. By recycling, you can make handmade paper with every furnish ever created by the paper industry. Each different sheet you recycle produces a different (slightly or radically) handmade sheet.
Wastepaper is considered waste because it cannot be used again as paper, but the fibers are not waste. Their useful life has hardly started. Not only is waste-paper not waste fiber, but science shows that for some paper qualities, recycled fibers are superior to new fibers. They have been studied in hundreds of research projects, and the paper industry is relentless in its quest to use higher percentages of recycled fibers.
What Can Be Recycled?
All and any paper can be recycled. If it can’t be recycled, it isn’t paper. Recycle everything to find out what it is you like to recycle. Just like new fibers, recyclable fibers run the gamut from cheap to the world’s finest. At the bottom of quality and cost are groundwood fibers, amply available as newsprint. At the top of the line are cotton and certain wood fibers pulped by advanced pulping technology, bleached for whiteness and/or further purification, and perhaps in a furnish, including opacifiers and optical brighteners. Here’s a bit of information about commonly available papers:
A Very Special Place
The Paper Discovery Center in Appleton, Wisconsin, is a very busy place. This hands-on museum celebrates all things paper, with a particular focus on the environmental aspects of modern papermaking. Visitors learn about the management of clean water for rivers, and about forest management to replace trees and foster wildlife habitat. More than 50 percent of the fiber used in the industry is recycled.
Four thousand students a year participate in a paper science curriculum, and more than 300 Scouts have earned merit badges in papermaking. And every one of the center’s 36,000 visitors, regardless of age, makes paper by recycling with an Arnold Grummer pour handmold. David Lee, the director, says that the Center’s goals are to energize an interest in science through the understanding of paper. Enthusiasm runs high, captured perfectly by a young visitor who told his parents, “Do I want to come back here again? Yeah, a thousand times!”
Newsprint. With newsprint you can make handmade paper that might contain a recycled comic strip (a big hit with kids) or a newspaper story about friends. Its short fibers are good for watermarking. Newsprint makes a nice gray sheet. One disadvantage is that the ink released from the fibers makes a rather dirty film or scum that gets on the papermaking equipment and can turn white papermaking screens gray. Avoid the ink problem by cutting off and using only the unprinted margins. Always clean all the equipment thoroughly after each use.
Home or business paper. This covers a broad spectrum of good-looking, highly acceptable fibers in good furnishes. They offer colors, as well as shades of white. Hold sheets to light to see if a watermark tells you the cotton content. Avoid printed ink effects by cutting away and using only the unprinted areas. Or use the inked sections to give a visual texture and color to handmade sheets.
Envelopes. These can be the backbone of white pulp supply. They are generally clean and range into the highest whiteness and the best fibers. They offer a wide range of colored fibers. Color from ink is bountiful from “security” envelopes where the inside of the envelope is printed with a colored pattern. Discard the glued flaps. Large envelopes often offer long fibers for strength. For pure white or colored pulp, use only the unprinted areas.
Bags. Many bags offer long fibers for strength. Custom bags from upscale department stores can offer great and unusual colors. Plain brown sacks offer a great natural earth-tone background for some botanicals. White grocery bags are the result of very expensive long-fiber, bleached pulp. A short presoak before blending helps but is not necessary. The long fibers tend to “flock” (see Defining Terms, pages 28–29) in handmade sheets.
Wrapping papers. These are a happy hunting ground for colors, unusual inks, and foils. Including them in the mix will result in dramatic mottling.
Magazines. Slick and shiny pages of any publication can be recycled. The fiber quality varies. Magazine covers offer unusual possibilities for handmade sheets.
Colored papers. These are dyed fibers and therefore a source of colored pulp for colored handmade papers. Because of poor fiber and dyes that run, avoid “construction” paper when recycling.
Superlative fibers. For superlative fibers, look for superlative uses. The paper used for programs (for concerts, drama, opera, etc.) is likely to be very high quality. The same is usually true of invitations to landmark events, anniversary programs, and publications from financial institutions.
Christmas papers. Harvest colored envelopes for dyed fibers; cards with lots of metallic ink; Christmas wrapping paper with color, heavy ink, or foil components; illustrations from cards to be surface embedded on next year’s cards; ribbons, strings, and more for inclusion in next year’s cards.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: I made a large art piece from recycled paper and noticed some of the colors have faded. Any suggestions?
A: Light is probably the most prominent cause of f
ading. Direct sunshine is a prime threat; so is continuous and prolonged exposure to incandescent and fluorescent light. Cheap papers having residual lignin (groundwood newsprint) fade the most and fastest. Cheap dyes (as in much construction paper) will bring fast fading. Lignin-free and colorfast papers may be candidates for recycling to lessen fading.
For prized papers, use common sense. Avoid long exposure to sunlight, bright room lighting, and continually changing temperature and relative humidity. Hang framed paper art at wall locations featuring mostly ambient light. Filters and safer light sources (special bulbs or fluorescent tubes) are available. Consultation with a paper conservator will be of value.
Recycled papers come from all kinds of stuff …
Chapter 2 Supplies and Materials
Most of the supplies you need to make paper, with the exception of a mold, deckle, or press, are already in your kitchen. In the case of tin can papermaking, however, you can construct a mold and deckle for free from a few recycled tin cans. The only other things you need are curiosity, willingness to experiment, and a basic understanding of how paper is made. Read on!
Gathering Your Supplies
Paper is one of the easiest waste products to recycle. The possibilities for creating one-of-a-kind recycled paper are right there in your home recycling bin — newspapers, magazines, junk mail, coupons, and grocery store flyers. Collect some labels from bottles and cans, old letters and envelopes, concert or theater programs and tickets, flyers and pamphlets, and you have a breadth of choice that is beyond comprehension!
Papermaking can be done at home or in a classroom, in just about any place where you have sources for water and power nearby. A kitchen counter is great, so you don’t have to worry about water spattering around. The following list of basics will get you started. Or, if you prefer, you can purchase ready-to-use kits or individual items such as papermaking screens at many craft stores. Some kits contain everything except the vat, tray, iron, and blender (see Resources, page 196).
Blender. This basic item is what you’ll use for preparing pulp slurry. Any kitchen blender will do; the more basic, the better. It’s best to have a blender you can devote exclusively to papermaking, unless you want to spend a lot of time scrubbing out all the pieces after each use. So, if you don’t have a spare blender already, you might want to pick up one at a yard sale or secondhand shop.
Molds and deckles. We’ll talk about molds in detail in the next chapter and even tell you how to make your own (see page 50). If you want to try tin can papermaking, all you need are two containers: one large one on the bottom to catch the water runoff and one of equal size or smaller for the top (see page 42 for details).
Vat. For home papermaking, all you need is a dishpan large enough to accommodate the hand mold.
Drain pan. This can be a tray, cookie sheet, or similar item with sides to catch the water.
Screens. These will be explained later in detail, but essentially, you will need fine nonmetallic mesh for the papermaking screen, to catch the fibers while allowing the water to drain. You also will need a stiffer support screen, which may or may not be attached to a frame that can double as a drain rack. A selection of screens can be found in local craft supply or hardware stores.
Sponge. A couple of good cellulose sponges that fit your hand and are easy to grab are useful for soaking up excess water on your new sheet of paper.
Couch sheets. For pressing and drying your sheets, you can use thick paper toweling, blotter sheets, or other absorbent material in pieces larger than the sheet of paper being made (see page 26).
Press bar. Used to press out water, this can be any piece of flat metal, wood, or plastic, or a book encased in a plastic zip-top bag.
Iron. An iron comes in handy for drying paper quickly. You just need one with a basic, high-heat setting. Be sure the steam is turned off!
Pulp gun. Any container, such as a turkey baster or mustard bottle, can be used to dispense pulp (see page 27).
Pressing equipment. There are a number of creative ways to press your paper (see page 27). You don’t need a full-blown press. However, if you’re really interested in pursuing papermaking, we provide instructions for making your own press (see page 34).
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What kind of blender is best for papermaking?
A: No type of special blender is needed to recycle paper; however, V-shape blenders that are narrower at the bottom (where the blade is) are more efficient. The paper can’t stay away from the blade as it can with U-shape blenders that are wide at the bottom. Often, the older the blender, the more sturdy it is, although some old blenders do have weak motors. “Bells and whistles” are not necessary. The fewer speeds a blender has, the better. Actually, a single-speed blender is as good as a 15-speed, and usually less expensive. Presoaking paper can help poor blenders.
Q: Do I need a paper press?
A: Stacking weights on top of newly formed sheets makes paper dry smoothly. For this reason, many papermakers use pressure for drying. A press can apply more pressure than weights can. It is especially good for paper that has had something transplanted to its surface. Paper dried under a lot of pressure has flat and smooth edges. Its surface is also smoother than paper dried under little pressure.
When paper was made by hand, paper mills had huge presses built especially for them. Today, hand papermakers sometimes can find old presses used by other trades, such as printing and bookbinding. But the easiest and cheapest way to get a press is to build one. With a small jack, like those used for changing tires on cars, you can build an economical press (see page 34).
I designed this do-it-yourself, 2-ton hydraulic press especially for hand papermakers.
Couching Materials
In papermaking, couching means taking the new wet sheet off the papermaking screen. Too weak to be lifted off by hand, the sheet must be coaxed off with the aid of absorbent material called a couch sheet, which acts like a blotter. In the past, felts of a special wool and weave were used in hand papermaking mills. These are no longer available, nor is the training on how to use them. You can use any stable material that is absorbent, including thick paper towels or cloth.
Blotter paper is perhaps the most efficient, easiest, and surest material to work. It is inexpensive and can be dried and reused. Precut professional papermakers’ blotter couch sheets also are available (see Resources, page 196). General desk blotters might be found at office supply stores. These will have to be cut and might not be as satisfactory for papermaking. If colored, they might bleed onto wet sheets. Interestingly, new sheets can be couched off the screen onto almost any solid surface, as shown in board drying on page 114.
Pulp Guns
A pulp gun is vital in making art and decoration with fibers. In this book, a pulp gun is any container from which pulp slurry can be squirted (shot), poured, or shaken in bursts or in a sprinkle. A turkey baster is a good choice, as are plastic containers with spouts or nozzles, such as mustard dispensers, plastic cosmetic containers, plastic shaving lotion bottles, syrup or honey dispensers, and plastic laboratory bottles with spouts that can be snipped off for smaller or larger openings. Another easily made solution is a plastic soda bottle with a hole drilled in the cap.
Keep your eyes open for any kind of dispensing container and try it. Different effects can be produced by varying the thickness of the pulp slurries, the squirting force, and the angle at which the pulp is shot into or onto pulp or onto a bare screen (see chapter 5).
Pressing Equipment
Pressing handmade paper is simply a matter of applying pressure to sheets to remove water. This process can be simple and inexpensive or more complicated and very expensive. The method doesn’t have much effect on the final result, as long as it’s done right. But the more pressure that is applied, the more some sheet characteristics are enhanced.
Simple. After placing the wet sheet of paper between couching materials, add weight, such as a stack of books, concrete or stone building blo
cks, or pieces of metal.
Expensive. Commercial presses can range from a two-ton, easily portable, screw press with a price around $300, to hydraulic presses costing $3,000 or more. Watch for presses made for other purposes that also can be used for paper. A prime example is the coveted and now costly bookbinder’s press.
Another option is to build your own drying press. See the instructions on page 34, which show an easily built, inexpensive press frame. It uses a two-ton hydraulic auto jack available from any discount store. It works beautifully.
People, Pressure, and Paper
What’s the difference between people and paper? People don’t like pressure; paper does.
What the press is particularly good for — besides sheet hardening, stabilization, and causing more internal bonding area — is getting botanicals into or onto sheets, as well as embedment of various things in or on sheet surfaces.
Less pressure limits the papermaker to mostly smaller, flat, flexible botanicals, such as individual flower petals, leaves, segments of delicate stems, ferns, blades of grass, and other flat and thin items. With two tons of pressure, I’m tempted to say you can throw in most anything: whole blooms, barley beards, bulky stem segments, the works. (Don’t try a whole sapling!)
Nothing can make a multi-element sheet into a cohesive whole the way a couple hours of continuous two-ton pressure will do. Can you make good paper without it? Certainly, but the press lets you climb a bit higher on the ladder.
defining papermaking terms
It seems every vocation has a list of words with meanings specific to that endeavor. Papermaking is no exception. Read through this glossary and refer back to it if you run across an unfamiliar term while completing one of the projects.
Arnold E. Grummer Page 2