Notes on Bookbinding for Libraries by John Cotton Dana

Author:John Cotton Dana [Dana, John Cotton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-11-25T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

CHAPTER XIV

Paper and Paper Making

Much of the paper used in books today is made of wood. Wood is converted into paper-making material in three ways. In one, it is cut into convenient lengths, stripped of its bark and finely ground on grindstones, and bleached. The product is called ground wood pulp. The paper made from this pulp is hastily and cheaply put together, has little strength, and soon turns yellow and grows brittle. There is often added to ground wood before making it into paper, more or less sulphite or soda pulp, usually the latter, the product of another process of turning wood into paper-making material.

In the sulphite and soda processes the wood is freed of bark, cut into small pieces, and reduced to a pulp by being heated with water and chemicals under pressure in an air-tight steel tank or boiler. Sulphite and soda pulp, which get their names from chemicals used in reducing the wood to pulp, have longer and better fiber than ground wood pulp. In both processes certain means are used to whiten the fiber and free it from sap, gum, and other things which would prevent it from acting properly in the paper-making machine, or would tend to make it grow yellow or spotted. Spruce or basswood are the woods chiefly used, and they seem to submit themselves to treatment better and to give a longer fiber than other kinds. The pulp made from rags is often mixed with sulphite and soda pulp. The rag-pulp fiber improves the quality of the resulting paper for reasons not easily set forth. Paper made entirely of wood may be of good quality, especially sulphite papers. The popular outcry against wood paper is based on the fact that much of it is made very cheaply and poorly.

The rags used in paper making are nearly all cotton. They are not all of them rags in the ordinary sense of the term. Many of them are cuttings from clothing factories and have never been used. New rags do not act the same way under the treatment which changes them to paper pulp as do the old ones. The paper made entirely from new cloth differs somewhat from that made from old rags. The best book papers, however, contain only stock prepared from old rags.

The process of changing rags into paper is very similar to that of changing wood into paper. The rags are cleaned, freed from foreign substances, cut into small pieces, thoroughly washed, bleached, and then beaten to a pulp, under water, by machines which convert them into a soft, homogeneous, creamy mass, called technically stuff, and yet preserve the greatest possible length of fiber. This process of beating rags into good paper-making material requires care and considerable time. If the process is hastened unduly the resulting material is not so good.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.