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I had the pleasure of visiting John and Jane Jeffery to see and try some of the processes involved in making ALPS in their workshop/home in Edinburgh. 

I've been gifted a deckle and mould (yeah, I know!!!) which is a piece of paper making equipment.It's not for sale and never will be (BECAUSE I LOVE IT!!!!)  but I thought it'd be an opportunity to show it and share it with you and explain what it does if you don't already know. For those of you that do know, hope you enjoy the pics! This is a pretty big deckle and mould (1175 x 450 mm). It's a piece of equipment used to make paper by hand.A deckle and mould is a wooden frame with a metal mesh bed. From the serial number on the mould we can see when it was manufactured: September 1916. W&R Balston the company who made...

We have compiled a list of terms, phrases and words associated with papermaking so if you're unfamiliar with something we say in our listings or on social media it'll probably be in this list somewhere.  Find out what Hot Pressed, rag, gelatine sized means... A series ISO range of paper sizes absorbency The degree to which paper takes up an amount of liquid, measured by a standard test. acid free Free from any acid content or other substances likely to have a detrimental affect on the paper or its longevity air-dried Dried with hot or cold air; usually applied to loft drying. A term used for high quality papermaking.  alkaline reserve A paper additive (such as calcium carbonate) that is...

In Europe everyone from a school child to your granny knows that you buy A4 paper for your printer at home. It measures 297 x 210 mm every time you buy it because it's a standardised size whether or not you buy it in the UK, Germany or Portugal. Some people know that A5 is half the size of A4 and often used by card makers and A3 (twice the size of A4) is a popular photographic printing size.  Professional printers use B size paper. These are slightly larger than A sizes which allows for the paper to be trimmed down to an A size after it's been printed.  However ordering paper in the old days wasn't quite so simple......