Two frames, two jobs. In the Western tradition the toolset is a mould carrying a permanently fixed stiff mesh, plus an entirely separate open frame — the deckle — that fits over it to contain the sheet being formed. The mould is built as a rectangular wooden frame reinforced with ribs, over which a coarse backing wire is mounted and a finer screen stretched tightly and secured all round.

Laid and wove. Two screen types. A laid screen is made of closely spaced parallel wires and prints faint lines into the sheet — hold old paper to the light and you can count them. A wove screen is woven in a plain square weave, typically around 40 wires per inch each way, and gives an even surface with no lines. Wove paper is the later invention, and the difference is visible enough that it helps date documents.

The deckle edge. A small amount of pulp always creeps under the deckle frame, thinning toward the edge. The resulting soft feathered border is the deckle edge — the physical signature of hand papermaking, and so desirable that machine papers are sometimes made to imitate it artificially.

Why the shake matters. Fibres in the vat drift with the flow. Shaking the mould in two directions as the water drains lays fibres across each other rather than all one way, and that random interlocking is what makes paper strong in both directions. A sheet formed without the shake tears easily along one axis. It is a two-second movement carrying most of the mechanical properties of the product.

Bronze, and then synthetics. Traditional screens are fine bronze wire, which does not corrode at neutral pH. Synthetic mesh later brought large savings — it lasts longer, is easier to keep clean, and its tighter weave retains more fibre in the sheet and loses less back to the vat. A rare case where the modern substitute is better on almost every axis, which is why most working papermakers now use it.

Papercraft Tools

Blueprints (1)

Paper Mould and Deckle