the Papertrail – Page 47

Finally working on the Monotype piston rod again

Posted on 2013/07/23 by kpmartin Posted in Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance, Kevin, Monotype Composition Caster — No Comments ↓

It has been a while but I finally got around to working on the extended-stroke piston rod for my Monotype caster’s pump tonight.

A while ago I had drilled and tapped the end hole for the handle. I was fortunate insofar as most of the rod fit through the hole in my drill press table, making the part easy to clamp for end drilling.

Since then I had milled one flat side on the very top of the rod using manual milling with the CNC unit just providing auto feed. This flat spot and its match on the other side provide a place for a wrench on the rod when necessary for removing the handle or the piston.

Because this is a small mill, it can’t cut much metal in a single pass, so I wrote a CNC program to cut the flats on the large-diameter section which allow the rod to be installed past the upper pump motion stop. This requires cutting off about 0.32″ of metal; at 0.010″ per pass making 32 passes I was certainly not going to do this manually.

This shows the mill partway through the process. When I quit this evening I still had 4 full-depth passes to go, followed by some shallower passes to the correct depth to give a good finished surface.

Once that is done I will modify the CNC program to cut the groove that the lugs on the piston lever run in. This is an even deeper cut but is only 7/8″ wide so overall it should go faster.

Then I will take the rod off the vee block, flip it over, and clamp it directly to the milling table to repeat all three flat cuts on the opposite side so the matching flats end up parallel to each other.

While the CNC program runs I am making a handle for this rod starting with a wooden file handle, into which I will fit a stub of 5/16NC threaded rod to match the threaded hole in the top end of the rod itself.

Our second papermaking press

Posted on 2013/07/22 by kpmartin Posted in Presses

From some of the lessons I learned from our first press, I made a new one out of aluminum. I had the chance to practice my (horrible) skills at welding this metal, but ended up with a press that was our workhorse for many years and it still used as a portable press when we do papermaking on the road.

Each 12×15″ platen is a hollow box with internal ribs to provide stiffness without excess weight. The bottle jack (6 tons) sits in a bit of a socket on the upper platen (rather than being welded on as in our first press). A deep socket on the crossbeam ensures that the top of the jack is properly located. The uprights attach to the lower platen and upper beams using bolts, making things much easier to use than the threaded-rod uprights of our first press. With a full-size post, this press can supply a pressure of 67 pounds per square inch, yet the entire unit weighs only 21kg (46 pounds), of which about one quarter is the weight of the jack. When dismantled, the parts are relatively simple shapes and easy to store. If rust ever becomes a problem with the bolts they are easy to replace.

Eventually, though, we wanted to make larger paper, so I built a floor-model press, and this one is now only used when we travel away from our shop.

Our first papermaking press

Posted on 2013/07/20 by kpmartin Posted in Presses, Sold — No Comments ↓

This is a press which I made for Audrey even before we bought the Papertrail; we have since stopped using it and sold it. The following details are drawn from memory so dimensions might not be exact.

The cross-beams were steel I-beams with holes drilled in the upper beam, guide tubes welded to the upper platen beam, and joining nuts welded to the lower platen beam. The 11×13″ platens themselves were 1½”-thick maple made by gluing together lots of 1×2’s, with plastic laminate (“Formica”) on the working surface. Four long carriage bolts acted as legs and feet, and four threaded rods held the tension between the upper and lower beam. A small bottle jack (perhaps 2 tons) supplied the pressure. Most of the parts were painted with white epoxy bathtub paint.

This press did the job for several years, and I used some lessons learned in designing our next press. The main problem with this press was having to spend what seemed like an eternity screwing on the threaded rods and the nuts that held the upper beam. Rust developing on the rods did not help either. As well, although it could be broken down into pieces, they were not as portable as we would have liked. In particular, the jack base was tack-welded to the upper platen beam, making a single piece that was both odd-shaped and somewhat heavy.

A little more cleaning on the Monotype Pump

Posted on 2013/07/20 by kpmartin Posted in Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance, Kevin, Monotype Composition Caster — No Comments ↓

Finishing the new extended-stroke piston rod is taking a little longer than planned, so in the meantime I decided to clean the piston and pump body lever mechanism. This is what transmits the pump spring pressure to the pump proper.

Like other pieces in this area of the caster it was coated with a heavy layer of hardened oil, so after disassembly I started with scraping using a putty knife, then gave it a soak in paint remover. All the joints were lubricated and reassembled.

Note that the second photo was taken with the camera flash making the metal look brighter. I decided not to paint these parts because the paint I am using would not likely withstand the heat from the pot. Instead I will coat it with mould oil to develop a finish similar to what it had before, but without the substantial accumulated thickness.

Mulberry maintenance

Posted on 2013/07/18 by kpmartin Posted in Fibre harvesting, Kevin — No Comments ↓

As part of trying to get better fibre from my mulberry plant, this year I am trying to prevent the original shoots from getting any side branches. This turns out to require some persistence at pulling off the suckers—the new branches that grow from the base of almost every leaf.

When the suckers are very short, as the ones seen above, they are soft and easy to break off.

But within a few days the suckers’ leaves start to open and their stems become fibrous enough that they require a good yank to break them off.

Furthermore, once a sucker has been removed, eventually two new suckers start to sprout from the original leaf base.

So pulling suckers has to be done at least twice a week, and unless you do it very methodically you will miss some and get some side branches anyway. By the time they have become woody there is no longer any point (as far as ease of stripping the fibre at harvest time) trying to remove them, although you can clip off their growing tips to try to put more growth into the main stems.

I’ll have to wait until fall to see how this affects the quality of the harvest.

Eucalyptus pulp for sale

Posted on 2013/07/18 by kpmartin Posted in Drying and finishing, For Sale — 4 Comments ↓

As part of a lot of papermaking equipment we obtained a while ago we got a stack of eucalyptus pulp (half-stuff) in sheet form. It had been used as blotters in a drying system. Although we don’t normally carry wood-based pulps, we are offering this for sale until we’re out of it (we have about 80kg).

The pulp is a pale cream colour (the photo also contains a sheet of white paper for reference) with occasional small stained spots from its use as drying blotters, and the sheets are 26×36″ which is just slightly smaller than our drying system (27×36″).

We are selling this pulp at $5.00/kg (with the usual pulp quantity discounts) making it even more economical than cotton linters, and even if you don’t want to make your paper from wood pulp, they make great blotters for our drying system. If you want this for a drying system make sure you tell us not to cut the sheets up for shipping.

Some remnant Premium Abaca pulp for sale

Posted on 2013/07/16 by kpmartin Posted in Sold — 1 Comment ↓

Years ago we decided to stop carrying Premium Abaca pulp in our catalogue, but we ended up with this small remainder that was never sold.

Clockwise from right: Regular Abaca, Bleached Abaca, and Premium Abaca pulps

Premium abaca pulp is made from abaca fibres specially selected for their light colour, thus resulting in a pulp alomst as pale as bleached abaca without the need for bleaching. As with our regular abaca pulps, these can be used just by rehydrating them, or they can be further beaten in a Hollander beater to make crisper paper.

We have about 16kg (35 lbs) of this and we are selling it for our original price of $21.00 per kilogram with the usual quantity discounts (5% off for 5kg or more, and in this special case, 10% off if you take it all). As usual, shipping and taxes extra.

We also have a limited supply of eucalyptus pulp (our only wood-based pulp) which I will describe in a near-future post.

Feel free to contact us if you are interested in buying some of this pulp, or anything else in our regular catalogue for that matter.

New Monotype Pump Spring Rod (sort of)

Posted on 2013/07/11 by kpmartin Posted in Equipment Acquisition, Repair, and Maintenance, Kevin, Monotype Composition Caster — No Comments ↓

After realizing that I could not make a new pump rod for my Monotype caster on my lathe (the lathe bed was not long enough), I considered several ways to get around this problem.

As it turns out the solution was easy: make a small extension to lengthen the existing spring rod.

I started with a shorter piece of 5/8″ round steel, turned one end down to 7/16″ and threaded it to match the lower end of the existing spring rod. I used a hacksaw to rough-cut the rod to length.

The other end of the rod was faced to the correct length, drilled, and tapped. I had a little trouble getting the bottoming tap started in the hole so the first turn or so of threads is a bit rough. A short 7/16″ counterbore accommodates the unthreaded portion of the end of the spring rod.

The photo at left shows the extension installed on the spring rod. The joint is tough to see, but it is a little over two inches from the lower end of the rod (which is at the top of the photo). Once I am sure everything fits correctly I will put some removeable threadlocker on this joint so that future removal of the spring rod does not leave the extension behind. If this were to happen it would be very difficult to remove since there would be no place to use any tool to turn the rod extension.

There is a small possibility that this joint might be weak enough to break eventually, but I would hope that by then I would either have a larger lathe or have found a genuine part to replace the home-made one.

Now the only job left is some mill work on the extended-stroke piston rod.

Papermaking for the Dundee Pottery Arts Camp

Posted on 2013/07/09 by kpmartin Posted in Hand Papermaking, Other people, Our own courses and workshops, Us — 1 Comment ↓

Tomorrow we will be hosting a two-hour papermaking session for kids in collaboration with the Arts Camp organized by Dundee Pottery.

We have the tables, vats, moulds and deckles all ready to go. We might have to set up a shorter table for some of the smaller kids, though.

A typical colour selection for teaching papermaking to kids. We also have a pail of white pulp. The pthalo blue (left), quinacridone violet (pink) and azo yellow form a good primary set for mixing.

Hiding out of sight is also a supply of glitter and other decorations to add to the paper.

Tagged with: Dundee Pottery

Finished paper from the Washi Workshop

Posted on 2013/07/07 by kpmartin Posted in Hand Papermaking, Kevin, Our own courses and workshops — No Comments ↓

Here are some photos of paper made at our recent Washi Workshop.

This is the sheet that was made using the western-style technique of a single dip in the vat and letting all the water drain through the mould screen. I had a piece of no-see-um netting over the mould and the paper was dried on this netting as we found it impossible to couch off. The sheet curled a bit when we peeled it off once dry but other than that it is a fairly nice sheet.

This is one of the 3 or 4 good sheets we got from the batch, probably one I made later in the evening after the workshop was done. It is very light, evenly thick, although it seems to show shadow lines from the ribs in my keta.

Many of the sheets showed one of more of the flaws in this sheet. The most obvious one is the hole near the lower right. The heavy bottom edge seems to result from a combination of insufficient formation aid and incomplete throw-off of the pulp from one dip, leaving a roll of fibre at the edge of the sheet. The thick line a few inches from the top of the sheet, and the thin area above it (often to the point of having holes) seem to be due to poor motion when picking up a fresh scoop of pulp, causing the first few inches of the sheet already formed to bunch up.

My habit is to scoop new pulp on the near side and throw off on the far side, so these two flaws always appear on the same edges of the sheet (although they don’t necessarily appear together). The thick far edge may also be the result of working one scoop of pulp too long, leaving too little water and too much fibre in the su, preventing a clean throw-off. This may be why more formation aid helps, as this would reduce the drainage rate of the pulp and keep it free-flowing longer.

One sheet ended up double thickness because I forgot to put the separator thread between the sheets.

Most of the initial sheets in the post had holes or came off in tatters because the sheets were not couching off the su properly. I wonder if I should start my post with a sheet from a previous batch so the top of the post can provide the right amount of cling for the sheet on the su.

The western papermaking that was also taking place as a diversion from making the washi resulted in a stack of 8½×11″ sheets in a light blue-gray with a speckle to them.

This was the western-style paper people were making as a diversion from the washi. It is made with recycled brochures resulting in a light gray paper with dark specks.