Here is the raw material. This is Barley Straw which is more yellow and shiny than wheat straw which tends to be dull and grey. We use it for both bedding and food for our animals.

Here is a bucket of Barley Straw outside my studio. It has been cut into short lengths about 1 inch long and has been soaking in water for about 2 weeks. Behind it you can see the green pot containg the wood ash lye the making of which is shown here - Making Wood Ash Lye

I used all the lye shown in the green pot and then I added soaked straw until the green pot was completely full. I didn't add any more water. Then it's brought to boiling and simmered. I think it simmered for about 6 hours. I lost track of time. At the beginning the straw is stiff and hard but by the end it has gone soft and floppy. The straw rises to the top and tends to build up into a kind of dome so every 30 minutes or so I push it back down and stir it around a bit.

When it has finished simmering I leave it soaking in the lye over nightt. This is the result. You can see that the water has boiled down from just under the top and has gone dark brown. I don't know why. The bulkiness of the straw has gone as well and is now generally floppy and limp instead of stiff and sharp.

The next step is to rinse it. This is a bit awkward and I haven't found a good way of doing this yet but at the moment I just keep transferring it from one bowl to another, each time with a change of water until the liquid is almost clear.

After rinsing the fibres for a while I tested the pH again.

The testing strip here is shown upside down but the numbers go from 1 on the right to 11 on the left. You can see that the pH is just on the alkali side of neutral which I think is Ok. It said in one book that this is ideal because the slight alkalinity acts as a buffer against acid in the environment. Well thats what it said anyway

The next stage is the tedious bit and involves pounding the fibres to break them down and turn it into pulp. I have squeezed out the water from the straw and here it is looking like something the cat brought in (or brought up). You can see a mallet which is intended for tenderising steak. On one side it is smooth wood and on the other it is faced in metal with facets. The way I work is to pound it all over until it is flat and then I turn the sides in to the middle and pound it all over again. I do this over and over and over again until the stuff is starting to look more like a paste. You are not supposed to be able to see individual fibres but frankly I've never had the patience to do it that long. Apparently you can speed the process up using a food liquidiser but I tried ours once and it just got clogged.

This process of pulping I'm not very happy about. Pounding just doesn't seem to be the right kind of action. I think it needs to be more like a grinding action. I was thinking that something like a giant pestle and mortar would be better.

I've now finished the pounding and I've filled a container with water and added half the pulp. As I make sheets of paper I add more pulp to the water. On the left is a sheet of plywood faced with lino. On top of that I've placed a pile of couching cloths. The first one is in position ready to take the first sheet. You can see the deckle and mould leaning against the water container at the back.

For couching cloths I use what's called in dressmaking circles "Interfacing". I think in the US they use a different term. One of the big problems I had on my previous attempts was that I couldn't get the paper to leave the mould and stay on the couching cloth. Bits of it used to stay behind. I discovered by reading the book more carefully that the couching clothes should be wet so I've made them wet here.

I bought the deckle and mould from a mail order supplier but having seen it I'm sure I could make one myself. This one produces A4 sized sheets. You have to put the deckle on top of the mould, holding the 2 together with your fingers. Give the pulpy water a stir and then dunk the whole lot into the water and lift it up horizontally. Let the water drain away a bit and then lift the deckle from the mould. You can see the two here with the mould covered in pulp which will become a sheet of paper. I hope. It takes a bit of practise to get the dipping right and I'm not very good at it.

The way I do it is this. I hold the deckle and mould in my hands with it tipped towards me. Then I take the lot under the water moving it parallel to the deckle and mould towards me as if I'm slicing down into the water. I take it down until the leading edge is almost at the bottom then I rotate it so that it's horizontal. I wait for a few seconds to allow the eddies to stop and then I lift it slowly and horizontally to the surface. It's something you just have to try.

You can also see one of my problems which is the long fibres hanging over the edge of the deckle. This is because the pulp hasn't been pulped enough and the fibres are far too long. They should be very very short. What happens is that when I lift the deckle from the mould the fibres trailing over the edge lift up bits of pulp lying on the mould. Sometimes they just make an extra raggedy edge but sometimes they pull chunks out. That's a problem I've got to work out.

The next step is to tip the mould onto the couching blanket, leaving the pulp on the blanket. I had big problems before where bits of pulp stuck to the mould leaving my sheet in shreds. I think I have solved that now. The way I do it is this. I put the edge of the mould onto the back of the couching blanket with the mould vertical and the pulpy side towards me. Then I rotate it about the bottom edge so that the pulpy side goes onto the blanket. Then, and this is the thing that made things work for me, I press very hard all around the edge of the mould. As you do this the water squeezes up through the back of the mould. Then I lift the back edge of the mould which was the first edge to go down on the blanket and I rotate and lift quite smartly and the pulp is left on the blanket. Then I put another blanket on top of that and so on until I have a pile of blankets with pulpy sheets between them.

When I have finished all the sheets I put another board on top of the whole lot and put a heavy weight on top that. At this point water goes all over the floor as it sqeezes out the sides.

I leave the pile of soggy couching blankets with the weight on top over night. A lot of the water runs away but the paper and blankets are still holding a lot of water. The next stage is a bit unconventional. The book I have suggests making up a press using a hydraulic car jack. Instead I use this old washing mangle. I put one sheet through at a time with a blanket under neath and another on top. I put it through slowly to allow the water chance to run away. After this the sheets are just damp.

I haven't found a good way to dry the sheets flat. In this picture on the right I have an old photographic tray heater. I tried stacking the sheets on top of this with dry blankets between and putting a board and a weight on top of that but after 3 days the sheets were still damp except on the edges which were starting to curl.

So far the best solution I've found is the electric iron you can also see on this picture. The sheets dry quickly and come out reasonably flat. I think one reason they are not flat is because they are not uniformly thick and there tends to be clumps of fibres. This causes uneven drying and hence curling. So one thing I have to do is to tighten up my paper making technique. The thicker sheets tend to dry flatter than the thin ones.

Here is one of the thicker sheets. I think one problem I have is that Straw has two kinds of fibre. (This is just me speculating by the way, I may be quite wrong). One kind is from the leaves and the other from the stems. You can see in the picture the long stalk fibres which haven't broken down at all. They look like golden threads. These long fibres are held in a matrix or cement made from the leaf fibres which have broken down completely to make proper 'paper'. If I can control this better I think it will come out good.

This last picture is of a very thin sheet which is still a bit damp. I think it looks great. Unfortunately it loses its transparency when it is fully dry and you only get to see it like this if you hold it up to the light.