| Acidity: |
a state of a substance that contains acid. Paper become acidic from the ingredients used in its manufacture, from the environment or both |
| Alum: |
astringent crystalline substance used in rosin sizing to hold paper fibers together and responsible for introducing acid into the paper |
| Basic Size: |
standard size of each grade of paper used to calculate basis weight |
| Basis Weight: |
weight in pounds of a ream of paper cut to the basic size for its grade |
| Bast Fibers: |
refers to a group of fibers commonly used in Japanese papermaking, including flax, gampi, hemp, jute, kozo and mitsumata |
| Brightness: |
characteristic of paper referring to how much light it reflects |
| Buffering: |
process that gradually neutralizes a paper’ s acidity by adding an alkaline substance, like calcium carbonate, at the pulp stage. Buffering helps reduce the acidity of paper over time |
| Coated Paper: |
papers with a finish, glossy or matte. Accepts most inks, markers, and colored pencil, but pigment ink must be embossed |
| Cold Pressed: |
mildly textured surfaces produced by pressing the paper through unheated rollers. Generally considered to be a surface between rough and hot pressed |
| Cut Stock: |
paper distributor term for paper 11 x 17 or smaller |
| Deckle: |
wood frame resting on or hinged to the edges of the mold that defines the edges of the sheet in handmade papermaking. Also strap or board on the wet end of a paper machine that determines the width of the paper web |
| Deckle Edge: |
natural, fuzzy edges of handmade papers, simulated in mould-made and machine-made papers by a jet stream of water while the paper is still wet. Handmade papers have 4 deckle edges, while mold-made and machine-made papers usually have two |
| Dull Finish: |
characteristic of paper that reflects relatively little light |
| Durability: |
degree to which paper retains its original qualities with use |
| Fibers: |
slender, thread-like cellulose structures that cohere to form a sheet of paper |
| Filler: |
generic term to describe the nonoxidizing clays or minerals added to the pulp at the beater stage to improve paper density |
| Finishing: |
term used to describe the cutting, sorting, trimming and packing of paper |
| Gampi: |
blast fiber from the gampi tree used in Japanese papermaking to yield a translucent, strong sheet |
| Gm/m2: |
metric measure of weight for artist papers. It compares the weights [in grams] of different papers, each occupying one square meter of space, irrespective of individual sheet dimensions. Another way of comparing paper weights is pounds per ream. A 140 lb. paper indicates that a ream [500 sheets] of that particular paper weights 140 lbs |
| Gloss: |
characteristic of paper, ink, or varnish that reflects relatively large amounts of light |
| Grade: |
one of seven major categories of paper: bond, uncoated book, coated book, text, cover, board, and specialty |
| Grain: |
the direction in which fibers are aligned |
| Grain Direction: |
direction in which the fibers of machine-made paper lie due to the motion of the machine. When machine-made paper is moistened, the fibers swell more across their width than along their length, so the paper tends to expand at right angles to the machine direction. Handmade and mold-made papers have indistinguishable grain directions |
| Grain long or grain short: |
paper whose fibers parallel the long or short dimension of the sheet. |
| High Alpha: |
nearly pure form of wood pulp which has the same potential longevity in paper as cotton, linen or other natural fiber |
| Hot Pressed: |
smooth, glazed surfaces produced by pressing the paper through hot rollers after formation of the sheet |
| Kozo: |
most common fiber used in Japanese papermaking, it comes from the mulberry tree. This is a long, tough fiber that produces strong absorbent sheets |
| Linter: |
general term for preprocessed pulp, cotton or wood, purchased in sheet form. Cotton linters are fibers left on the seed after the long fibers have been removed for textile use. They are too short to be spun into cloth but can be cooked and made into paper. Stiffer and more brittle than long-fibered cotton, linters produce a low-shrinkage pulp good for paper casting. They cannot produce a paper with the strength of cotton rag. Wood linters are called hardwood or softwood depending on grade |
| Mitsumata: |
bast fiber used in Japanese papermaking that yields a soft, absorbent and lustrous quality |
| Mold: |
tool for hand-papermaking, it is a flat screen that filters an even layer of fibers through it to form the sheet. In western papermaking, it is accompanied with a wooden frame called a deckle |
| Opacity: |
characteristic of paper that helps prevent printing on one side from showing on the other |
| Permanence: |
degree to which paper resists deterioration over time |
| pH: |
measure of the hydrogen ion concentration of water solution and substance, denoting acid or alkaline A paper’s pH is measured on a scale from one to fourteen. Seven is neutral. Numbers higher than seven are alkaline and numbers lower than seven are acidic. Papers with a pH of 6.5 to 7.5 are generally considered neutral |
| Plate Finish: |
smooth surface found on paper that has been run under a calender machine one or more times |
| Ply: |
single web of paper, used by itself or laminated onto one or more additional webs as it is run through the paper machine |
| Pulp: |
general term describing the beaten, wet mixture of stock used in making paper, whether its contents are wood, cotton or other fibers |
| Rags: |
processed clippings of new cotton remnants from the garment industry for use in high quality papers. |
| Rough: |
heavily textured surfaces produced by minimal pressing after sheet formation |
| Size: |
material, such as rosin, glue, gelatin, starch, modified cellulose, etc. added to the stock at the pulp stage, or applied to the surface of the paper when dry, to provide resistance to liquid penetration |
| Sulfite: |
term for pulp made from wood. Depending on how it is processed for papermaking, it can either be acidic or neutral pH |
| Surface-Sized: |
term applied to a paper whose surface has been treated with a sizing material after the sheet is dry or semi-dry |
| Uncoated Paper: |
papers with a higher absorbency rate that coated papers and easier to use with most inks, markers, watercolors, and colored pencils |
| Watermark: |
design applied to the surface of the paper mold, which causes less pulp to be distributed in that area and results in the transfer of the design to the finished sheet |
| Web: |
continuous ribbon of paper, in its full width, during any stage of its progress though the paper machine |
| Wet Strength: |
strength of a sheet of paper after it is saturated with water |
