Saturday, July 26, 2008

Re: [papercreters] very fine paper pulp

Funny you should ask today! This afternoon we installed a garbage disposal unit in one of the double sinks we have outside the shop. The sink unit is an old kitchen sink. We left the drain end of the disposal open and set a bucket under it.
 
I had soaked a wheelbarrow full of torn newspaper strips for over a week. I turned on a slow stream of water in the sink and turned on the disposal. With a wooden paint stirrer, I poked small bunches of the newspaper down the disposal. Soon I had a bucket full of lovely silky slurry - very smooth!!! I made a pillowcase bag of casement cloth (a sturdy open weave about the scale of window screen) to fit the bucket. I dumped the slurry into the bag to squeeze the water out. Next batch, I lined the bucket with the bag... much easier to handle!
 
I will probably get three buckets full of usable drained slurry out of my wheelbarrow load of shredded paper.
 
The previous batch I made, I must have spent an hour with a paint stirrer and never got all the paper beaten, Then I squeezed and squeezed, broke it up into crumbles somewhat larger than popcorn and let them dry. Then I put half a handful at a time in a coffee grinder and got a nice fluff, but it still had some tiny grains to it. This I mixed with wallpaper paste for a rather lumpy PM to make a doll body from...the doll stands 16" tall.
 
Can't wait to use the new slurry for the next stage on the doll body. Will report results in a few days, when the current PM has dried.
 
Pepper
 
----- Original Message -----
From: ngrdh
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 9:51 PM
Subject: [papercreters] very fine paper pulp

Hi all,

I am looking for suggestions on how to get a very finely ground slurry paper pulp. I don't
want the normal bumps and pieces that normal papercrete has; I'd like it to be very smooth
and finely chopped so you would not even know that it is paper.

I'd rather not do a rough and then a topcoat, I'd like to be able to do one pour and have it be
smooth, like your basic fine sand/cement mixture.

Any suggestions on a larger scale to achieve this? I've tried the bucket with a paint
attachment and it still gives me bumpy slurry.

I'm thinking along the lines of a industrial blender with a cutting action?

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Heather

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