Tracing Paper: Flax Tow Beaten to a Clear Pulp, Ure 1839

Tracing paper is paper you can see through. Andrew Ure (1839) says the best, sometimes called vegetable paper, is made from the refuse of the flax mills, the tow, beaten without fermenting into a semi-transparent paste that dries into a transparent sheet. The picture: the vat room of an 18th-century paper mill, the vatman forming a sheet and the press behind (Diderot's Encyclopédie).

중급

Two days

안내

Cut and soak the tow

Cut flax tow into short lengths and soak it in clean water. Do not let it ferment (Ure).

이 단계의 재료:

아마 단섬유500 g

물20 리터

필요한 도구:

중작업용 금속 가위

대형 나무통

Beat to a clear pulp

Beat the wet tow for much longer than for ordinary paper, until it forms a semi-transparent paste (Ure). Ure's mills used the beating engine; by hand it takes hours.

필요한 도구:

나무 망치

대형 나무통

Form the sheets

Dilute the pulp in the vat and form thin, even sheets on the mould, couching them onto felts as for rag paper.

필요한 도구:

종이 뜨는 발과 발틀

양모 펠트 시트

대형 나무통

Press and dry with care

Press the stack, then dry each sheet in the press between sheets of blotting paper, changing them several times so the thin sheets do not crease, as Ure describes for bank-note paper of the same stuff.

필요한 도구: