We start off with sheets of pulp that are processed for handpapermaking. Our two most used fibers are cotton and abaca (related to the banana plant). Here are two pounds of cotton soaking, ready to go into the Hollander beater to make pulp.

Pulp running through the beater, which separates and hydrates the fibers to prepare them for papermaking (better explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollander_beater ) This process, for cotton, takes about 1-2 hours, including cleaning.

Here we pigment our pulp, for whatever color of paper we want to make.

This is me setting up the mould (or mold) and deckle to make paper on. The mould is a screen that the pulp fibers can sit on while the water drains out. The deckle is a frame that goes over the mould so that all the pulp fiber is held in place. Generally, you dip the mould and deckle into a vat of pulp, but here, we are using a "deckle box" set up, where we pour the pulp into the mould instead.

Our deckle-box set up: a bamboo screen for the mould; a pelon (which the pulp fibers drain through/sit on); the deckle being latched on top; the plastic, to keep the pulp from draining out until we're ready!

We fill the plastic with pulp and water and make sure it's level.

These deckle boxes offer two main advantages: one, you can make much larger sheets of paper (this box is 22" x 30"), and two, you can swirl together different kinds or colors of pulp for different effects.

Another example of the pulp swirled together in the deckle box, just waiting for us to pull the plastic out.

And then we pull the plastic out! (It's quite hard to photograph, as you can imagine!)

After letting the water drain out for a few minutes, you take off the deckle, and now it actually starts to look like paper.

We build a stack of these wet sheets, called a post, sandwiched in between pelons (for a smoother texture) and felts (to absorb extra water). At this point, the sheet is still 80% water.

When we have done making paper, we take the post and put it in this 50-ton hydrolic press to squeeze out all the extra water. This also presses the fibers together more to help form a stronger sheet. Out of these large 12 sheets of paper, we can usually squeeze out about 10-15 gallons of water.

After pressing and ready to go into the dryer system. Can you tell how much thinner it is?

A swirled sheet after being pressed.

To dry the sheets, we layer them in between blotters and cardboard, and then stack them into a dryer system.

Stacks of drying paper, blotters, and cardboards in our dryer system.

And a stack of the final paper! I have about 50 sheets here, which is a culmination of roughly 25 hours of work, from pulping to drying.