[EKStationers] To answer the question about Papermaking

[Aziza Mojalled]

I make the pulp now in a Hollander beater. I use abaca(banana leaf) linters
and beat it for one-two hours in the machine. Those machines are expensive,
but my college has one that I'm using like crazy before I lose access to
it.

Abaca is a great base pulp for other plant pulps that oftentimes are too
fragile to stand alone. Sometimes I beat recycled paper or construction
paper.

Mulberry/Kozo is a lot easier and doesn't need a beater, and has been used
for many thousands of years for papermaking. You still need to boil it and
hit it a whole lot with a mallet to soften the fibers. Kozo looks better as
a hand-beaten product. The Hollander beater chops and dices the naturally
long and thin kozo fibers, rendering it not as unique as it would have
looked had it been hand beaten. Kozo naturally has this very satisfyingly
crispy feeling to it, and you can soften it and make the surface more
regular by adding a bit of flax pulp.

Other fibers used historically was gampi, hemp, rice stalks or wheat stalk.
You can get all of these from a place online called Carriage House. Thing
is, beaten pulp paper is mostly an Eastern thing, there is evidence of its
use in Persia but it was oftentimes imported from farther east.

Any book by Helen Hieber is a good resource. She has one specifically for
making pulp with garden plants and weeds.

Hope this answered some questions.

Best,
A. Mojalled
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