Papermaking
at Home and in the Classroom - Equipment and Supplies

The technique used in this cookbook makes use of common materials and requires at most a little woodworking to create beautiful handmade paper.

Materials

Scrap paper from junk mail, catalogs, or magazines, torn into small pieces (you'll need about one large sheet of scrap for each sheet of paper you're going to make). Avoid using newsprint; when it's beaten it turns into a gray mush and produces an unattractive sheet of low-quality paper that has already been recycled. Also newsprint isn't acid-free, so paper made from it yellows and gets brittle. 

  • A food blender (often available in thrift stores). 
  • A mold (a frame to which a fine mesh screen has been attached). 
  • A deckle (a frame that mates with the one used for the mold, but which has no screen). 
  • A vat (a large plastic container that holds the slurry picked up by the mold and deckle). 
  • Liquid starch (optional, for sizing). 
  • Kitchen whisk 
  • Pieces of wool blanket, about twenty, each cut a bit larger than the sheet size. 
  • Spray bottle (to hold water for misting the surfaces of the wool blankets). 
  • A large sponge 
  • Two plastic or waterproofed plywood boards (for pressing formed sheets). 
  • Pieces of cloth (bed sheeting works well) cut to size for ironing the formed sheets dry. 
  • An iron.

 
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