Monday 31 January 2011

The history of paper

3000 BC
The Ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks used papyrus, a tall water reed found along the banks of the Nile to write on. The papyrus was prepared by soaking, pressing and drying the thin strips of the pith of the plant.

AD 105
Chinese court official Ts'ai Lun invented paper from rags presenting the sheet of paper to the Emperor Ho Ti as a substitute writing surface to silk.

Chinese papermakers developed sized, coated and dyed paper and developed a paper that was protected against insects. Rags were replaced with bamboo which was de-fibred by cooking in lye

AD 610
Papermaking was introduced into Japan via Korea from China. The Japanese made their paper from the fresh bast fibres of the mulberry or kozo tree. Following the cooking process, the long, uncut fibres were beaten.
Knowledge of papermaking spread to Central Asia and Tibet and onto India.

751
Method of papermaking was passed onto the Arabs when some Chinese papermakers were captured after the Battle of Talos in 751. Paper mills were soon established in Baghdad and Damascus and the Arabs used rags due to the lack of fresh fibres. The pulp was spread across screens of reeds and both sides were coated with starch paste giving the paper a fine appearance and good writing properties.
From these cities papermaking spread to Cairo in Egypt where it displaced papyrus.
It later spread westward to Morocco.

9TH CENTURY
10TH CENTURY
12TH CENTURY
The Moors introduced the art of papermaking to Spain and Sicily in the 12th Century. According to legend France learned the art when Jean Montgolfier, was taken prisoner by Saracens in the Second Crusade and returned after servicing captivity in a Damascus paper mill.
Early paper was at first disfavoured by the Christian world as a manifestation of Moslem culture, and a 1221 decree from Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II declared all official documents to be written on paper invalid. The introduction of the printing press in the mid 1400s changed European attitudes towards paper.

13TH CENTURY
The Italians improved the Arabs technique developing the use of water power, moulds made of wire mesh, stamping mill and the paper press with slides for feeding in the material and drying it on ropes.
In 1282 water marks were used in Italy for the first time and consisted of simple crosses and circles.

14TH CENTURY
The Arabs exported paper to Europe and passed on the methodology of making paper to Germany in 1389 when Ulmann Stomer, with the help of skilled workers from Italy established a paper mill with two waterwheels, 18 stamping hammers and 12 workers using one or two vats.

15TH CENTURY
Papermaking spread to Belgium in 1407, Holland in 1428, and Switzerland in 1433. Between 1450-55 book printing in Europe commenced when Johann Gutenberg's 42-line Bible was produced.
In 1470 a bookseller's advertisement issued by Peter Schoeffer was the first poster printed upon paper to be produced in Europe.
In 1480 Antony Koberger, distributed a printed circular to his customer, the first use of this form of advertising. Papermaking was introduced into Great Britain in 1490 and was made by John Tate of Hertfordshire. In 1491 paper was made in Poland.

16TH CENTURY
The advantages of using a mill spread throughout Europe and improved output and quality of paper produced. However many papermakers went out of business due to the disproportion between costs of equipment, building and fitting out a mill and the earnings generated.
1576 paper made in Moscow in Russia. 1591 paper made in Scotland.

17TH CENTURY
In 1690 William Rittenhouse started making paper in Philadelphia, USA in a paper mill modelled on the European mills of the day. The mill was located near a town to enable a reliable supply of rags, the main raw material at the time. A large quantity of fresh water was also required for washing the fibres and turning the mill machinery.
Technical progress and an upsurge in papermaking continued in the 17th Century and soon led to a shortage of raw materials and to regulations governing the trade in rags.
The Hollander beater was invented to beat the material into individual fibres, contributing to a stronger product and providing a more efficient method of making pulp.

18TH CENTURY
In 1755 wove paper was made and in 1760 watermarks were used in wove paper. In 1776 Nathan Sellers, a skilled wire drawer in Pennsylvania applied his craft to the manufacture of paper moulds.
By the 1790s American papermakers had begun experimenting with alternative raw materials testing local sources of fibres such as tree bark, bagasse (sugarcane waste), straw and cornstalks as a substitute to rag pulp.

19TH CENTURY
In 1804 the first book was printed on machine-made paper. The first efficient paper machines were introduced in 1825. In 1854 chemical pulp was patented. By the 1860's rag pulp paper was replaced with wood pulp due to the introduction of wood grinders.
Flat screen and cylinder machines were introduced in the 19th Century and were extended to include a dryer section. During this period all work sequences previously performed by hand were mechanised.

20TH CENTURY
During the 20th Century machines were designed specifically for the production of particular paper and boards. New materials and chemicals were introduced into the process and automation occured. New sheet forming principles and chemical pulp processes also evolved.

Sunday 30 January 2011

100 robot nets


Below are the 100 nets that I'm using to make the parts for my robot, the idea is that people will be able to pick and choose which parts they would like to make up their very own personalised robot, the stock will be left blank so they can customise them if they choose to.

The top net didn't work at all the logic behind it was all wrong so had to redo that one.

The net on the right didn't work properly i messed up the logic behind the indented corner. Easily solved though just made one cut wrong.






the top net on this page didn't fit together properly.







Friday 28 January 2011

100 robot parts

From the first design of my paper robot i found it was quite time consuming to make it so 100 individual robots wouldn't be possible to  achieve in time. However 100 parts seems much more appropriate.


Monday 24 January 2011

Paper toy robot. Cube-ert.


This is the original idea i had in my head for the paper toy robot, i'd seen paper toys before and had always wanted to try making my own, there was no real theory behind this when i first began to make it, it was just a raw idea.
The use of the tubes to connect the body works really well as it allows the toy to be articulated a taken apart/put back together easily.
You can see in the top right of the picture there is the 3D example of the design.

Friday 14 January 2011

Book Binding Workshop


Consatina Book 






Japanese stitch book




The only down side to this one is that it does open up and lie flat without bending the previous pages.


Pamflet fold book.



Here are some books i made last year on my foundation course.


Consatina book again only we bound them with a tab at the end of the paper not by sticking pages together entirely. This way looks far more neat but is perhaps more flimsy.


Water bomb book, called so because its folded the same way as you would when making a paper water bomb.






Another Pamflet fold book this one has end leaves and a cover though.




This was me just experimenting with binding several Water bomb books together to see how they would fold out.




It worked ok and you could make interesting shapes and patterns with book depending on how many you add on.

Sunday 9 January 2011

'100...how to line a cake tin with greaseproof paper'

http://www.cookuk.co.uk/techniques/recipe_caketin_greaseproof_paper.htm

'100...questionnaire on paper posted to facebook'


right here goes, better late than never hey.
my research is on PAPER so heres a quick questionaire

1. whats your favourite size of paper and why?
2. whats your favourite stock to print on and why?
3. roughly how much would you say you use per week at college/home?
4. do you recycle you waste paper?
5. what, in your opinion is the best use for paper?

thanks all looking forward to seeing you in studio 2 hope you had a great xmas break :D
    • Joe Warburton ‎1) A6 and i'm not too sure why, 2) standard gloss cos colours always seem to look much better, 3) probably not that much anymore, just the odd A4 print now and again for reference and then the main prints at the end of a project, i used to print off almost 80 A3 sheets a project (5 weeks ish) in college cos it was free. 4) i try to yeah, 5) communication i guess?
      Thursday at 20:17 · 
    • Charlie Crosby cheers fella ;)
      Thursday at 20:25 · 
    • Sarah Roberts favourite papr a5, baecause its small enought o carry around with you and big enough to draw stuff.
      Thursday at 21:18 · 
    • Sarah Roberts matt? because it feels good. 3. ALOT erm about about 7 a3 for drawing, god knows about printing stuff and general writing. 4. yes, it feels good. 5. drawing and scribbling down thoughts making them into something beautiful or ugly. hope this helped
      Thursday at 21:20 ·  ·  1 person
    • Chris Lawson 
      ‎1. A3, in my opinion the perfect size for a portfolio.
      2. I love to print on brown paper, looks so good with a nice simple design.
      3. a week, I'd say about 50 for all sizes
      4. yes
      5. printing finals onto.
      ...See more
      Thursday at 21:43 ·  ·  1 person
    • Max Gregory ‎1. A0
      Friday at 02:19 · 
    • Max Gregory ‎2.harman matt :)
      Friday at 02:19 ·  ·  1 person
    • Max Gregory ‎3. less than i should
      Friday at 02:20 · 
    • Max Gregory ‎4.all the time
      Friday at 02:20 · 
    • Max Gregory ‎5. definitely writing on
      Friday at 02:22 · 
    • Oli Cassell ‎1.a3 (2:1) 2. water color(not actually done it but it looks crisp) 3. quite alot 4. yeah 5. toilet paper is the best use for paper!
      Friday at 11:37 · 
    • Christoffel Van Niekerk 
      ‎1) A6, just feels right
      2) depends on what im printing out, but id probly say tracing paper cause its bad ass.
      3) loads, depends on how much i need to print out aswell...
      4) that would entirely depend on if the bin in studio was a recycling b...See more
      Friday at 13:27 · 
    • Matt Tucker a4 - not to big not to small
      Friday at 14:00 · 
    • Matt Tucker really liking watercolour stock to print at the moment nice and thick and looks hand printed, varies week in week out depending on what project we have on the go, i do recycle my paper and the best use for paper is sexy graphic posters that arnt advertising anything
      Friday at 14:01 · 

        • Luis Bachini I dont have a favourite paper size.
          In college it was tracing paper because it always managed to get interesting results from it. Don't really have a favourite atm sorry.
          Again im not sure, it fluctuates.
          I try to.
          for graphic design obvs
          about an hour ago · 
        • Dom Rugman ‎// A3, but it depends on the occasion.
          // Antique white atm, or just good quality matte
          // A fair amount (couldn't give any figures)
          // I do where I can.
          // Big sexy prints.
          about an hour ago ·