Papermaking Processes
Traditional Methods of Papermaking
Until the introduction of mechanisation papermaking was traditionally done by hand. The early mills were often run by two men; the vatman and the coucher. The only form of machinery used were the water powered stampers which would beat the raw materials (usually rags) into pulp. The vatman would form the sheet by lowering a mould into a vat of pulp and then lifting out and passing to the coucher. The coucher would couch the formed sheet onto a woven cloth called a felt, the process was then repeated. When a batch had been made it was placed under a press to separate the paper from the felt and then hung over ropes in the drying loft to dry. Papermaking by this method was a slow and laborious process which only produced small batches of paper.Mechanisation
The onset of the industrial revolution saw the shift from small cottage industry to widespread mechanisation, papermaking was no exception. In 1801 the Fourdrinier papermaking machine was patented in France. This machine worked by a continuous process where pulp was fed onto a belt of wire cloth that was continually moving so that the sheet was left on the surface while the water drained through the wire. The introduction of this machine and other technical advances drastically increased the production of the mills on the Water of Leith.New Methods of Production
As the mills grew they began to invest money to develop and improve the quality of their paper products. In 1860 Kinleith Mill began to use esparto grass in production and were quick to capitalise on the advantages of this raw material. They were approached by T and A Constable printers to produce a bulk lightweight paper for book manufacture. This led to the birth of featherweight paper, which became the staple of Kinleith's business. The books it produced were light and easy to handle and the thick spine became a good sales point as they were easily seen by potential customers. Galloways of Balerno also used technical advances to aid their production; they wanted to increase their range of products and produce high quality coated paper. In 1937 Galloways became the first British mill to operate the champion process. This process made coated paper called Galart by continuous process on the machine which became a major part of Galloways business