It's a long weekend here in Ottawa. My goal is to do some paper experiments this weekend mixing abaca and cotton pulp.
I've been using a starter papermaking kit from Papertrail. Among other things, the kit comes with two types of pulp: "1st-cut cotton linters pulp (which makes white paper) and unbleached Abaca pulp (which make beige paper)" (Papertrail.ca).
I didn't know this before, but cotton linters are basically the short, fuzzy fibers left on cotton seeds after the main cotton fibers (used for textiles) are removed. These leftover fibers are then processed and turned into paper pulp.
Abaca comes from a plant related to banana (sometimes called "Manila hemp"). It's much stronger than cotton and can be made very thin without falling apart.
In the kit, both pulps come in the form of thick, dense sheets which are called "dry pulp sheets" or "pulp board." They're wet pulp that's been pressed and dried into compact sheets and easier to store and measure in this form.
A few weekends ago, I made my first batch of paper in my new art studio using cotton pulp. There was quite a bit of leftover prepared pulp, so I'm planning to mix it with the abaca pulp this weekend and see how the sheets turn out. This will be my first time working with abaca.
I love the papermaking process mainly for its slowness. In general, it's about a 2-3 day process from start to finish.
I arrived at my studio around 11am today, dropped off the leftover cotton pulp, and started soaking the abaca sheets. The pulp needs at least 15 minutes in water to loosen the fibres.
The abaca made the most amazing hissing sound when I placed it in the bucket - like fizz escaping from a can. It made me think about how many subtle sounds are part of the papermaking process.
https://youtube.com/shorts/s_u-cbvflII?feature=share
After 15 minutes, the sheets are soft enough to tear into smaller pieces, which are then left to soak for a few hours or ideally overnight. In my case, I left them to soak overnight and I'll be back in the morning to blend the pulp and continue the process.
All for now. More to come!