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02 - My first paper pulp

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 My first attempt at making some paper pulp was a voyage of discovery in a lot of ways. I made some mistakes along the way - the first of which was to use a cardboard box, rather than just scrap paper, but I learned an awful lot about that cardboard box - probably more than the average person would ever really want to know! This is the box that I started with. The first step is generally to shred your base material - first lesson learned… I’d recommend trying to tear it first. This box was actually quite difficult to tear, other than at a creased fold, and when it did tear, I found that all the colour and printing was in a plastic coating. Had I just put the box through a shredder or cut it with a knife or scissors, I wouldn’t have known this until I found hundreds of tiny bits of the plastic coating in my pulp, and the pulp rendered unusable. Thankfully, once recognised, the plastic coating was relatively easy to strip off the cardboard, leaving me with the bare cardboard undernea...
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01 - Hand Papermaking 101

OK, so exactly how DO you make paper by hand?  In very basic terms, it’s a fairly simple process… you take some paper pulp, and mix a small amount of it into a large amount of water to make a fine suspension. Then scoop some of that up on a mesh screen, allow the water to drain out leaving a flat layer of pulp on the screen, then let it dry. Simple, huh?  Not so fast… let me break the steps down and give you a bit more info. Firstly, you need some form of pulp to use as the main constituent of your paper. This could be a pulp made from existing paper products such as paper, card, cardboard, etc. (either recycled scrap paper products - which is what I intend to use, or clean virgin paper which has no dye or ink pollutants to affect the colour of your finished product). It is also possible to buy half processed pulp, which may have.  advanced qualities, be made from more exotic ingredients, and/or have particular additives already in it - but that kind of expense is beyond ...
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Intro

Now that I have retired, I had hoped to have time to pursue two of the hobbies that I’ve dabbled in through my life, namely photography and electronics, but one of the down-sides of getting older is failing eyesight, which is frustrating my efforts in both - so I’m starting a new hobby - paper making… and I want to share the experience of learning this new interest with you. I’m starting out relatively cheaply. The only major expense I can see coming up is the purchase of a blender, and I will be buying the cheapest I can get hold of in the January sales, until I know if this is going to be a longer term hobby, or a five minute wonder. The other things I’ve bought so far are a large plastic storage tub to use a) as storage for all my paper making bits and b) to actually make the paper in, and a kitchen sieve to drain my pulp (got done there… was just wandering through IKEA and saw one that appeared to be priced at $7, but I got charged $12 at the checkout… my wife very helpfully later ...
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