The ancient Egyptians invented papyrus during the 4th millennium BCE. Hemp was used in India from 200 BC until 1850 for the production of paper. The modern production cost of hemp paper is four times higher than that of wood. Pulp paper was invented in China using the paper mulberry (kozo) in the 2nd century during the Han Dynasty. In addition to mulberry, paper was made from bamboo, kenaf (hibiscus cannabinus), blue sandalwood, straw and cotton. In Italy, cotton was first mixed with silk fibers to make a paper called Carta Bombycina. Pulp making from flax fibers and cotton spread to Europe in the 13th century. In the 1800s, used cotton rags became the primary source of paper. Other fibers used for paper are: sisal, pineapple leaf, abaca, gampi and mitsumata. The last two are used for making Japanese washi paper.
Almost any tree can be used to make paper. The Paper Mulberry is used in China. The Daphne tree is used in India. Softwood and hardwood trees each have special properties. Softwoods such as spruce, pine, fir, larch and hemlock consist mostly of cellulose and lingin (a three dimensional polymer that binds the cellulose fibers together). Softwood also has long fibers that contribute to the strength of the paper. Hardwoods such as birch, poplar, aspen and eucalyptus have short fibers and more hemicellulose (a short branched carbohydrate cellulose) than softwood. Most pulp is composed of 45% sawdust, 21% chips and 34% recycled paper.
Calcium bisulfite (a sulfurous acid) was introduced in 1840 as a means to break down lingin without destroying the cellulose fibers. It became known as the kraft process. However, it caused paper to turn yellow. Ethanol and vinegar are more environmentally friendly chemicals, but are still acidic.
Methylcellulose is used as sizing to treat paper to prevent watercolor absorption. It's available from Dharma Trading for $15.95. Also sold as wallpaper paste at home improvement stores.
Elmer's Glue All, also known as PVA glue is used as a binder in grass fiber papers.
Bleach
You can always sun bleach your paper, but that will probably take much longer than you're willing to wait. You can use sodium hydrosulfite to bleach ink and dye from recycled paper. Peroxide is used by the paper milling industry to achieve a bright white that is acid-free.
Sodium Hydrosulfite is a color remover. It oxidizes at 185 degrees F. It is a safe whitening alternative to chlorine bleach. Purchase from Dharma Trading for $7.84.
29% Hydrogen Peroxide is an an optic brightener.
Dilute 1/8 teaspoon of peroxide in 1 gallon of water. Add 1/2 cup to whites to brighten them. Add a 1/4 cup to colors to lift stains. Corrosive; causes chemical burns; wear gloves. Must be diluted for use. It's available from Amazon.
Never combine peroxide with chlorine, ammonia or vinegar!
Exotic Fibers are available from Carriage House Paper if you would like to play with them.
Wooden mallet with brass tacks nailed into the end or acoustic guitar neck for pulverizing raw fibers.
Tampico fiber brush for wallpaper or masonry to smooth wrinkles out of damp paper.
Fine white nylon mesh is available from Fashion Fabrics Club for $5.95/yd.
Deckle and Mould, homemade or commercial. They're easy to make with 1x1" sticks and corner braces. Staple metal window screen or nylon mesh over the top of the deckle. The mould should be slightly larger than the deckle to rest over the screen. This is what holds the fibers in place under water. Treat the wood with linseed oil or shellac. Typical sizes are 2x3, 3x5, 4x6, 5x7, 8.5x11, 9x12 and 11x14. Special sizes are bookmarks and tags. Special mould shapes are envelopes, oval, heart and star. These are held on top of a screen.
Cotton linter is available as sheets or pre-shredded in bags from Arnold Grummer. This pulp can be used in a blender without pre-soaking. It is used for both paper making and by itself for paper moulding.
Couching (coo-ching) sheets, along with blotter paper, absorb water from the wet paper. Typically wool felt or extra heavyweight sew-in pellon interfacing is used. Wool felt is available on Etsy for $2.00/12x12" sheet.
Paper Press on eBay for $137.99. It isn't necessary, but nice to have for making professional quality paper.
Heat Press on Amazon for $189.99. Not necessary, but helpful in making hot pressed paper.
Paper Cutter is useful for cutting perfectly sized sheets. Make your deckle and mould an inch larger than the finished size.
Basic Process
Cut bark and leaf fibers into 2-4" long pieces. Cut grass fibers into 1/2" pieces.
All fibers, except papyrus and paper birch, must be boiled in a solution of 4 ounces of washing soda per 1 pound of raw material in a gallon of water.
Pulverize boiled fibers into tiny hairs with a wooden mallet. This can take two hours or longer.
Process fibers 1/4 cup at a time with 1 cup of water in a blender. Too much fiber or fibers that are too long will wrap around the blades and burn up the motor. Pour each batch into a bucket as you go.
Tea, coffee, activated charcoal, food coloring or pigment can be added to the blender for soft color.
Fill a vat (plastic tub or shallow tray) halfway with clean water. Lay a board beside the vat. Wet a sheet of blotter paper and a sheet of felt. Place the blotter paper onto the board and lay the felt on top. A sheet of interfacing may be laid on the felt for a finer texture. Other fabrics may also be placed on the felt for different textures pressed into the paper.
Pour 1 cup of the pulp to the vat water and mix it into a slurry. Place a deckle and mould into the vat. Evenly distribute the pulp across the screen and lift it out of the water. Allow the excess water to drain. Invert the screen with the pulp over the felt and press hard with your body weight. Slowly lift the mould. The pulp should stick to the felt.
Place a sheet of felt on the pulp and a sheet of blotter on the felt. The sheets can be stacked by adding another sheet of felt on top of the blotter. Continue the process until you've used all of the pulp.
Press with a wood board and a brick or use a book press to squeeze out excess water.
Remove the paper from the press and lay it on a smooth surface. Gently smooth the paper with a soft brush. Allow it to dry. The paper can be heat pressed with an iron for extra smoothness, cold pressed with a book press for fine texture or left unpressed for coarse texture. In India, damp paper is dried on metal flashing sheets to make it smooth.
For vibrantly colored paper, submerge dry paper in a vat of liquid dye and dry a second time.
Unused pulp can be saved for future use. Simply strain fibers through a sieve and dry them in a single layer. Soak and blend again for reuse.
Hot pressed paper is smooth. It is used for drawing, sketching and mixed media. It is good for detail work, but doesn't accept more than three layers. Cold pressed paper has a slight texture. It is typically used for colored pencil and watercolor. It doesn't accept details, but is good for up to six layers. Unpressed or raw paper is rough. It is used for pastel, watercolor and colored pencil. It can withstand heavy layering.
This is a final pressing of the dry paper with a heat press or iron. Cold pressed paper is made with a paper press.
Papyrus and Bamboo Paper
This process is also used for bamboo. Harvest young papyrus reeds or bamboo shoots the size of a finger. Remove the green rind and set aside. It can be used to weave mats or baskets, etc. Slice the pith thinly.
Place the strips into a tray filled with water. Place a sheet of plexiglass over the strips and weigh it down with stones. Allow them to soak for 24 hours. Soaking releases the natural glue that binds the fibers together. After soaking, use a wooden rolling pin to squeeze out excess water and flatten the strips. Return the strips to the water and continue soaking. Repeat this process for a few days.
Lay a sheet of linen on a hard, flat surface. Place a sheet of felt on top of the linen. Place half of the strips on the felt horizontally, overlapping them 1/16". Place the other half of the strips over the first layer vertically, overlapping them 1/16". Place a sheet of felt on top of the strips followed by another sheet of linen. Sandwich between two boards in a book press until it is dry, changing the felt every day to aide in the drying process. The pressure causes any remaining hollow spaces and air ducts to compress and the plant fibers to interlock forming a strong bond.
Birch Bark Paper
You'll need a paper birch tree for this. Peel off a large piece of loose bark. Use warm water and a bit of dish soap to remove dirt and outer bark. Rinse in warm water and soak until damp. Peel bark into three layers while rinsing in between layers where the bark is chalky.
Place each layer between paper towels to dry. Place a heavy book on top of the paper towel to flatten the paper. Allow to dry. It can be used the same as scrap booking paper.
Wood Pulp Paper
Cut three branches from a live tree. Remove the bark in thin strips and discard. Remove the inner bark (bast) in thin strips as well until the branch is too thin to shave.
Allow the strips to air dry completely. Soak the strips in water for 10 days. Remove from water and drain. Add 4 ounces of washing soda per 1 pound of raw material in 1 gallon of water.
Place burlap over the floating strips and press. Boil for 15 hours adding water as needed.
Remove burlap and set aside. Remove strips from the pot. Rinse strips in cold water. Scrub strips with a stiff natural brush to remove dirt and brown fibers. Rinse strips and drain again.
Place strips on a hard surface and beat with a paddle or mallet. Cut into small pieces. Pound pieces into pulp with a mallet. The pulp should be almost dry when ready.
Place a deckle and mould into a tray of fresh water. Place a handful of the pulp into the water inside the frame. Mix the pulp until it is slushy. Tap the water to evenly distribute the pulp inside the screen.
Lift the deckle and mould and allow the water to drain. Leave the pulp in the screen and allow it to dry. Air dry during the summer. Heat dry beside a fire during the winter. Halfway through the drying process, rub the paper with a fine pumice sanding stone. Remove the paper when thoroughly dry.
Xuan Rice Paper
Rice paper is made from long straw rice or sandy land rice named for the sandy soil it is grown in. This type of rice isn't grown in wet paddies. Only the straw is used to make paper, not the grain. It is harvested during August in Jing County, Anhul Provence, China. The bark of the Wingceltis tree (paper mulberry or kozo) is also used to make the paper. The Wingceltis tree has been cultivated since the Ming Dynasty. Young trees are harvested every three years.
The inner bark strips are boiled together with the straw and then laid out as sheets to air dry for 6 months, during which time, it is naturally sun bleached. The sheets are turned over after 3 months to facilitate drying.
The sheets are gathered up, soaked and pounded into a pulp. The pulp is processed with a silk screen that is laid into a bamboo slat frame. The silk screen is lifted from the frame with the paper attached. It is then hung on a wall where it is allowed to dry. Halfway through the drying process, it is removed from the screen and stuck to a wall where it is smoothed while damp with a wide natural hair brush and allowed to dry completely.
The layers are separated with a gentle tap in the top left corner and peeled downward. The paper is very thin, smooth and naturally resistant to ink and water.
Try this method with tall pasture grass and softwood pulp following the basic process.
Hemp and Nettle Paper
The process of making hemp or nettle paper is a combination of the process for papyrus and wood pulp. Nettle has a green rind similar to papyrus and bamboo. Hemp rind is finer. Remove the rind from hemp and reserve it for making cloth. Nettle rind can be used for weaving. Shred and chop the pith into small pieces.
Follow the basic process above.
Flax Paper
Flax paper is made with the leaves of the flax plant. Linen is made with the seeds. You can use the live green leaves or dead brown leaves. Cut flax leaves into 4" long pieces and simmer with 5 ounces of washing soda per pound of raw material in 1 gallon of water for 4-5 hours. Soak and rinse leaves until the water runs clear.
Follow the basic process above.
Grass and Leaf Paper
Fine pasture grass is ideal when it stands 2 feet tall. Examples are brome, bluestem, fescue, forage wheat, etc. Cut the grass into small pieces while green. Iris and lily leaves make the strongest paper. Harvest leaves in spring or summer by cutting the leaf close to the base. Harvest dead leaves in the fall. Tear leaves against the grain. Dry grass and leaves thoroughly before use. One pound of dry grass will make 10-8.5x11 sheets. One pound of dry leaves will make 15 sheets.
Boil with 4 ounces of washing soda per pound of dry material in 1 gallon of water for 4-5 hours.
Rinse the boiled fibers through a sieve until the water runs clear.
Process 1/4 cup of fiber with 1 cup of water in a blender. Pour each batch into a bucket.
Add 1 tablespoon of methylcellulose and 1 tablespoon of PVA glue to a cup of warm water. Stir with a plastic spoon until thoroughly dissolved.
Pour the methylcellulose into the bucket of pulp. Stir with a plastic spoon.
Follow the process above.
Cotton Paper
It's tempting to use dryer lint for cotton paper, but if you have washed blended or synthetic clothing, it would result in a poor quality paper. It's fine for craft and seed paper, but not for art paper. Cotton paper is graded as 25, 50 or 100% cotton. The quarter and half percentages are mixed with wood pulp.
Cotton linter is the short hairs attached to the cotton seed after going through a cotton gin. It is considered as waste in the cotton industry. If you visit a cotton gin, they'll probably give you all the waste seeds you want. Otherwise, you'll either have to purchase linter or grow your own cotton.
Cotton seeds are de-linted by one of two methods: chemical or mechanical. The chemical process involves acid and is used when the seeds are to be saved for replanting. The seeds are soaked in hydrochloric acid which reacts with the moisture in the seeds to generate heat. The fibers are disintegrated and the seeds are soaked in soda ash, lime or anhydrous ammonia to neutralize them. The mechanical process involves a high speed rotating abrasive surface to rub the fibers off of the hull. The seeds are then crushed to extract the oil. The resulting meal is used as livestock fodder or as a gardening soil additive for heavy nitrogen feeding plants.
You can de-lint cotton at home with a drum sander. Just be sure to place the sanding box inside a plastic tub with a lid to prevent the seeds from flying around. You'll have to drill a small hole in the tub for the drill bit and position the sander close to the box surface.
Unrefined linter is the fiber removed from the seed and isn't milled. Refined linter is called second cut. It is ground with a Wiley mill through a 4mm screen and then, bleached. A Wiley mill is essentially a grain mill that uses a special type of blade inside of the grinding wheel with a stationary screen at the bottom. Perhaps using a coffee grinder to cut the fibers combined with a grain mill to grind and sieve them might work for home use.
Cotton Comber Noil
Cotton comber noil is made from the short fibers that are removed during the combing process before spinning. The fibers are then soaked in sodium hydroxide (lye) and used to make cotton balls, swabs and pads. It is used as blotting paper to absorb water, but may also be used as a low quality linter substitute.
Shred a bag of cotton balls between two wire dog brushes. This is basically the carding process.
Boil with 4 ounces of washing soda per pound of dry material in 1 gallon of water for 4-5 hours.
Rinse the boiled fabric through a sieve until the water runs clear.
Process 1/4 cup of fabric with 1 cup of water in a blender. Pour each batch into a bucket.
Follow the process above.
Cotton Rag Paper
Cotton rag paper is made from shredded cotton clothing. Linen, hemp and bamboo fabric can also be used. It's heavier and has a rougher texture than paper made from linter.
Cut fabric into 1" pieces and soak overnight.
Boil with 4 ounces of washing soda per pound of dry material in 1 gallon of water for 4-5 hours.
Rinse the boiled fabric through a sieve until the water runs clear.
Process 1/4 cup of fabric with 1 cup of water in a blender. Pour each batch into a bucket.
Add 1 tablespoon of methylcellulose to a cup of warm water. Stir with a plastic spoon until thoroughly dissolved.
Pour the methylcellulose into the bucket of pulp. Stir with a plastic spoon.
Follow the process above.
Recycled Paper
This is the easiest type of paper to make because it is made with dryer lint and pre-made paper. Since commercial paper contains bonding agents and wood pulp, nothing else is needed. It's the most fun paper to make because you can really get creative with it. Add food coloring to the blender water or add botanicals to the vat water. Whole flowers and leaves can also be placed on top of the felt and pressed into the sheets.
Cut or tear paper into 1" pieces and soak with 2 tablespoons of lint overnight. Process 1/4 cup of pulp and 1 cup of water in a blender.
Follow the process above.
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