OCR Text |
Show 1 OLD~PAPERMAKIN but in later years the fibrous pulp was conveye to the vat by gravity. The writer once visited paper mill that had been equipped in the latte eighteenth century, in which the liquid pulp ha been conveyed from a stone cistern to the vat, b way ofa long winding wooden trough. The pul had been thrown into the trough by a huge wooden wheel fitted with copper buckets In forming sheets of paper, a workman called vatman or dipper, stood on a platform in front o the vat holding a mould firmly by the narrowes sides. A removable "deckle," or frame, was place on the mould which acted like a shallow fence around its edges. The vatman plunged the moul at an almost perpendicular angle into the pulp,an when well submerged he turned the mould an lifted it horizontally from the vat. By this actio the mould was covered with the fibrous materia and the pulp that was not needed for the weight o paper being made, was allowed to run over the bac edge of the mould into the vat. The worker the shook the pulp on the surface of the mould, firs from right to left, then from back to front. Thes four motions crossed the fibres, making the sheet of paper almost equally strong in all directions. Th vatman then removed the wooden deckle whic left the wet sheet of paper cut sharply along th edges, upon the mould. Next the vatman passe the mould to the second artisan, called a "coucher, Digitlimage© 2004 Marritt Library, Universtty of tah. Al rights reserved |