I started as a binder in 1970 and within a year I was immersing myself in thick double-cord sewn books and dreamily declaring that I wanted to find a primitive island place to live and make books from local materials—an idea that Dard had, at a similar age, fifty years earlier. I hadn't heard of him then, but a few years later, I was devouring his classic work, but not making much paper. Twenty years later I had a working water-powered stamp mill (thanks to Jack Thompson, partner in teaching the Technology of the Medieval Book at my place from 1987 to 1997) and I could actually make the whole book from the ground up. I'll leave printing to one of the other four incarnations (and according to Dard, he "never bound a single volume").1 I am trying to perfect writing paper, which I bind into blank books. I have lots of them made from flax and hemp stamp mill paper mostly made in the '90s. Only now have I completed them in thick, wooden-boarded, bronze-clasped, Gothic-style books. My wife Melody and I grow flax for thread and I salvage trees for wood covers. According to the writings of Rev. Dr. Richard L. Hills (b. 1936), parchment was considered the only worthy permanent writing material until the fourteenth century in Europe. Then the Italians began to refine papermaking into a worthy but admittedly second-class permanent writing surface. Papermakers refined the fiber and the stamping process. All-wood finishing hammers were added to refine what the iron shod hammers could not do. (I have noticed that my metal hammers can only refine to a limit, and no matter how long they beat, no further refinement takes place.) They began to use gelatin instead of starch size and in combination with hand burnishing they achieved a surface resembling parchment. Refinements in wire drawing resulted in better brass screens for the papermaking moulds. They also sped up the process allowing the "price of paper in the fifteenth century to fall 40% while that of parchment rose."2 Paper began to be grudgingly accepted and was often used in odd combination with parchment in the same book! Sometimes the books were moreplanned, with an outer folio of parchment and the rest of each section being paper, or with both outer and inner folios of parchment with paper sandwiched in between. Some of my favorite combinations are the ones that are all parchment for part, then all paper for the remainder. Even Gutenberg had to compromise. He wanted to print the Bible solely on skin but in the end he produced more editions on paper than skin. I work with flax and hemp because those were the dominant textile fibers in Europe during "my" time. We always hear that old paper was made from rags which would imply a fiber that is naturally degraded and weak. Rag shortages, appeals, outcries, and laws regarding its commerce abound in literature. Today, the lack of truly worn-out and deteriorated textile rags (especially flax and hemp) has forced contemporary papermakers to seek out new raw fiber or textile offcuts, which take a lot of cooking, washing, and rinsing to clear out the non-cellulosic material. I have found that natural bleaching is much more effective than cooking to purify the cellulose to an amazing degree, however it takes a lot of time. Tim Barrett (one of the other four reincarnations) has done a lot of experimentation with new fiber, especially with fermentation, to bring old-world quality paper to a modern world.3 I am convinced that many old papermakers turned to textile offcuts and/or raw fiber when they could not get rags. I came to this conclusion when I noticed that a lot of old papers have a long fiber (raw fiber) look to them and some have shive (stalk) bits in them. By the time a textile has turned into a rag, the shive should be long gone. One of my favorite papermakers Ebenezer Hiram Stedman (1808–1885) wrote a series of letters in old age to his daughter. They were compiled into the book Bluegrass Craftsman (University of Kentucky Press, 1959) which documented his impressions about the early days of Kentucky papermaking and life then. Dard Hunter called it the most complete account of early nineteenth-century papermaking. Mr. Stedman, working in paper mills since he was eight, eventually restored an old mill and began trading store-bought goods for hemp tow from the slaves. Tow is the shorter fiber caught in the hackle when combing the 8-feet- to 12-feet-long staple fiber. He chopped the tow with an axe on a block. He never mentions cooking, cleaning, or fermentation. He notes that he made "all the paper for the KY state printer." One can see in the paper of these years a slightly gray and long (raw) fiber look, but it was a tolerably good paper. When loft drying the paper on poplar poles, Stedman loved it when the paper would "freeze to whiten it." The less white the paper was, the more likely it would be sold as wrapping paper, worth considerably less than writing or printing paper. Having spent his last two dollars on brass, he got his start by making two reams of wrapping paper from fifty pounds of rats' nests gathered from nooks and crannies around the long-abandoned mill that was used as a pigsty. When the first white paper was produced in England in 1588, Thomas Churchyard commemorated the occasion with a 352- line poem, excerpted here: If paper be, so precious and so pure, so fitte for man, and serves so many wayes, So good for use, and wil so well endure, so rare a thing, and is so much in prayes: Then he that made, for us a paper mill, is worthy well of love and worldes good will. And though his name, be Spillman by degree, yet Help-man nowe, he shall be called by me. In those days, people desperate for paper could not be too demanding. White book paper was very difficult to achieve before The author's stamp mill in Santa, Idaho, during its inaugural run, beating cotton cloth, 1992. Courtesy of the author. 20 - hand papermaking the advent of chemical bleach. Today, a lot of preprocessed flax and hemp are subjected to chemical bleaching which makes it easier to beat into pulp but produces a weaker paper. At the twenty-fifth-anniversary meeting of the Friends of Dard Hunter, during a session on beaters, someone made the point that the term "overbeaten" pulp implies that something went wrong in the beating process. If the goal is to make the ultimate book paper—a paper that has high folding and tearing strength, opaque finish, watermark legibility, and a reasonable one- or two-second drain time—then "overbeaten" would be an appropriate term. However when papermakers have other uses in mind for their paper, then high shrinkage could be desirable. I am always astounded when I see the wonderful variations in modern papermaking. I have been getting to know beaters, too, and how quickly my painstakingly purified flax and hemp fibers turn into "overbeaten" pulps that result in translucent, crackly sheets showing no watermarks. No matter how long I run pulp in my stamp mill, it never gets "overbeaten." Three days in the stamper is roughly equivalent to one hour in a Valley beater. I find that the beater roll and bedplate must be in very good condition to control the beating action so as not to "overbeat" flax and hemp, as opposed to abaca which is gloriously forgiving. I am preparing to do more comprehensive comparisons between stamp beating and Hollander beating. I am rebuilding my stamp mill (with newly learned blacksmithing skills) and I recently acquired a Valley beater that I hope to get going soon. I know that stack dryers are a great innovation in some ways, but I have come to love loft drying. A loft-dried 12 x 18 inch sheet is typically at least one inch shorter on the long side than the same sheet stack dried, and has a different character too. When I was making paper for the 35-pound blank book for Penland School, I had to loft dry a lot of it because the stack dryer could The author performing a reading of the Bluegrass Craftsman, by Ebenezer Hiram Stedman, a nineteenth-century papermaker in Kentucky. The performance took place at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, in October 2003, during the annual meeting of the Friends of Dard Hunter. Note the raw flax, hand axe, and whiskey jug. Lynn Amlie (in background) assisted with the reading. Photo by and courtesy of Mina Takahashi. The author performing trombone as part of the FDH Anniversary Band at the banquet of the Friends of Dard Hunter twenty-fifth annual meeting in Chillicothe, Ohio, October 2006. Photo: Peter Hopkins. Courtesy of Friends of Dard Hunter. The author trimming the wooden cover of the 35-pound blank book he made for Penland during the winter of 2007. The book is now on a stand in the Penland reading room and students, instructors, and visitors are invited to write or draw in it. Photo: Robin Dreyer. Courtesy of Penland School of Crafts, Penland, North Carolina. A book by Jim Croft for the University of Iowa Library teaching collection containing the entire range of handmade papers he produced in the late 1980s and 1990s. Near completion, the 7 x 5 x 2 ½ inch book with Gothicstyle binding (wooden boards, traditional oak bark tanned deerskin, round spine, brass clasps) will be accompanied by an essay and notes on each type of paper included. Courtesy of the author. not keep up with the production. The learning curve is steep for loft drying and even steeper for loft drying after gelatin sizing. One day, I had extra gelatin so I went back into my reserve of "failed" wrinkled sheets and spurs of sheets inadvertently stuck together. Even though the sizing area is typically called the "slaughter room," I realize now that it is also the latest and greatest chance to flatten deformed sheets. Some unusable, very cockled 1995 firehose stamp mill sheets are now quite marketable thanks to traditional gelatin sizing, a light pressing in spurs, and loft drying. I have also had good luck drying wet sheets by exchanging blotters, but be sure to start early and don't go to bed without changing blotters at least three times or they will become very cockled. To cure paper, especially thick paper, I like to keep the paper under weight in the press as long as possible. Dard Hunter, too, cured his papers in a press for a long period of time, but he frequently rearranged and exchanged them to obtain that desirable old-paper feel. I burnish each sheet with a bone folder on marble. The benefits are many—a harder surface, concentration on trouble spots, and a pleasing, open suppleness. I have tried glass and agate, which are traditionally used for burnishing in many places, but I don't like how they quickly become scratched and produce a lot of friction, causing the paper to move around a lot when you don't want it to. I read that in Ambert, France, in the late 1600s, they used a wolf's tooth for burnishing. I am sure Hand Papermaking readers have other ideas on the topic. Let's start a traditional papermakers' support group! Two sheets of paper made by the author from linen firehose. The pulp for the smoother sheet on the left was Valley beaten, and stamp milled on the right. Courtesy of the author. ___________ notes 1. Dard Hunter, "Peregrinations and Prospects," The Colophon Part 7 (1931), as reprinted in A Dard Hunter Reader, Jack Thompson, ed. (Portland, Oregon: Caber Press, 2000), 62. 2. Rev. Dr. Richard L. Hills, "Early Italian Papermaking, A Crucial Technical Revolution," IPH Congress Book 1992, vol. 9 (International Association of Paper Historians, 1992), 45. 3. Natural fiber alert: I am afraid that our source of Belgian flax may be affected by an influx into the EU of lower-grade, much cheaper hemp and flax that have been harshly retted with enzymes. Buy Belgian. Support traditional fiber.