Preparing pulp from waste materials is the first and most variable step in hand papermaking. The source material determines sheet colour, texture, and strength, so understanding what each type contributes helps in selecting and combining stocks for a given purpose.

Green paper pulp made from beaten rag fibers

Beaten rag fiber pulp ready for sheet forming. The colour comes from the original fabric. Source: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA.

Sorting Source Materials

Not all waste paper and textile behave the same way in a vat. Before soaking anything, it helps to separate stock into broad groups:

  • Office and printer paper — already a short-fiber stock, breaks down quickly, produces smooth, relatively thin sheets with limited wet strength.
  • Cardboard and kraft packaging — longer fibers, higher lignin content, yields brown or tan sheets with more body. Requires longer soaking and more beating to open the fibers fully.
  • Cotton fabric scraps — cotton is nearly pure cellulose and produces strong, long-lasting paper. White or light-coloured cotton rags yield cream or off-white sheets; coloured fabric tints the pulp.
  • Newspaper — highly acidic and prone to discolouration over time. Usable for practice sheets but not for archival work. Benefits from mixing with longer-fiber stock.
  • Linen and hemp scraps — historically prized for high-quality paper; produces very strong sheets. Less common in households but occasionally available from fabric remnants.

Mixing 70% office paper with 30% cotton rag is a common starting blend for home papermakers. It balances handling ease with improved wet strength and surface texture compared to pure recycled office stock.

Soaking

Torn pieces — roughly 3 to 5 cm — soak more evenly than large sheets. The goal of soaking is to hydrate the fibers and begin separating the bonds between them before mechanical beating.

Office paper typically softens within 30 to 60 minutes in room-temperature water. Cardboard and fabric take longer — often several hours or overnight. Hard Polish tap water (which tends toward the harder end compared to some western European averages, due to groundwater sources in many regions) does not significantly affect soaking time at this stage, but very hard water can interfere with fiber bonding during sheet formation; pre-filtering or using collected rainwater is an option some papermakers in central Poland use.

Beating

Beating mechanically separates and bruises the fiber bundles, which dramatically affects how sheets form and how they feel once dry. The two common approaches for home workshops are:

Blender Beating

A standard kitchen blender handles small batches quickly. The recommended ratio is roughly one small handful of wet torn paper to about 750–900 ml of water. Running the blender for 10–20 seconds produces a moderately beaten pulp. Over-blending cuts fibers short and reduces sheet strength; under-blending leaves fiber clumps that create uneven sheets.

For cotton rag, the same blender method works but benefits from a longer initial soak — 8 to 12 hours — to allow the fabric weave to loosen. Running the blender in two or three short bursts rather than one continuous cycle gives more even results.

Hollander Beater (for larger output)

A Hollander beater — a trough with a rotating roller that circulates and beats fiber against a bedplate — produces more consistent and controllable results than a blender, and can handle the volume needed for 20 or more sheets per session. Plans for home-built Hollander beaters are documented in several craft papermaking references, including publications from the Hand Papermaking periodical (Washington, D.C.) and materials available through the Friends of Dard Hunter organisation.

Boiler equipment used in traditional rag preparation for papermaking

Traditional boiler used for cooking rags before beating — a step that softens fiber and removes sizing from fabric. Source: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA.

Cooking Fiber (Optional)

Simmering torn fabric or stiff cardboard in a solution of washing soda (sodium carbonate, available at Polish drogerie or hardware stores as soda kalcynowana) for 1–2 hours softens lignin bonds and makes beating more effective. The ratio commonly cited in workshop notes is approximately 10–15 g of washing soda per 100 g of dry fiber weight.

After cooking, the stock should be rinsed thoroughly until the rinse water runs clear, then beaten as described above. Cooking is particularly useful for card stock and heavy kraft paper that resists blender processing.

Storage of Prepared Pulp

Beaten pulp stored in water will begin to decompose within a few days at room temperature. Refrigeration extends usable life to roughly a week. For longer storage, drain most of the water and freeze the wet fiber cake in a sealed bag; it can be reconstituted by soaking in water and briefly re-blending before use.

Keeping the pulp clean during storage matters — any contamination introduces mould that discolours the sheets and weakens the fiber.

External References