PaperMaking from Plants:
HEMP Paper

I purchased a wonderfully clean raw hemp from Peter Hopkins who has a store on Ebay

"Industrial hemp is one of the finest papermaking fibers in the history of the craft. It is among the strongest, most durable of papermaking fibers, has a very high cellulose content and replaces the industry's obsession with cutting down our forests to make paper.....this beautiful bast fiber...has been expressly grown and processed for papermaking in Europe. Remember, we can't grow hemp here in the United States, unlike most other developed countries in the world, whose police forces have easily figured out how to distinguish industrial hemp from marijuana.
This hemp fiber is a beautiful blonde color because it has been retted very carefully, then decorticated to remove as much of the core fiber as possible.
This is raw hemp fiber, so to prepare for papermaking, it needs to be cooked in an alkaline solution, then beaten in a hollander or by hand.

I weighed out 12 ounces of hemp, soaked the hemp for a day, and I cooked the hemp for about 8 hours in soda ash. It still felt... tough.



Blender Preparation
Blendered for 2 minutes. I pulled sheets from the blendered hemp. It reminded me of another new experience--- kozo. FLuffy, cloudy.... very soft after blendering....



Except the hemp loved hemp more than any other fiber I've ever seen. It clumped very actively. Formation aid helped a lot and it still drained quickly.
The other challenge was long strands...

I cut this smaller than usual--- Into bits 1/2 inch or less and still--- fiber tails would drape over the deckle, Other than that, it couched easily and puffy sheets were translucent on the felt. I adjusted my methods--- getting the deeper deckle and putting a bit more pulp in the vat.

They have a wonderful crispness just from blendering.... I ran each batch about 2 minutes in the blender. I'm enamored of this! Thanks Peter!



Beating the Industrial 8 hr Hemp
the other half of the batch I beat it for 8 hours. I used methylcellulose and formation aid and the beaten sheets .created a very different paper from the blendered pulp.
It's like fabric. Lustrous and luscious.

A bear to .... not pull or couch, but the long, super-fiberphilic fibers draped over the deckle or up the deckle...just really different stuff. It clumped a lot more in big wooly/cottony clouds and formation aid helped a bit but not much.



I already described prep, still it amazes me that 1/2 bits beat into these very long fluffy mounds of stuff. The differences can't be communicated by digipix, too well... the paper has a gleam, a slight sheen, and has more of a rattle pulled thin and feels like cloth when pulled thick.





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