Why Does My Handmade Paper Fall Apart or Feel Weak When Dry?

The sheet looks fine, but it tears at a touch, splits along a fold, or sheds fibres when you handle it. It may feel soft and blotter-like, or brittle.

The usual causes are weak or already-dried fibre, fibre cut short in the blender, and a sheet that was never pressed well. They feel similar in the hand, so the checks below take them one at a time.

Separate it from two look-alikes first. If the paper holds together but feels too rough or fuzzy for a pen, the surface guide is the better starting point. If the sheet is strong but looks dingy, that is a color question.

Note that the wet sheet needs strength too. If yours rips during transfer, read about tearing at the couch.

Change one thing per batch. Make small test batches and label each sheet.

1. Ask what went in the vat. Catherine Nash's beginner instructions rule out glossy stock and newspaper. Write down the source papers.
2. Make a fibre test. Blend a small batch of cotton rag, drawing paper, or watercolor paper and pull a sheet the same way as before.
3. Compare blend times. Make two small batches from the same paper, one with a short blend and one with a long blend.
4. Compare pressing. Press one sheet firmly between boards and leave one lightly sponged. Dry them the same way.

Use a better source

Your fibre choice sets the ceiling. May Babcock of Paperslurry recommends drawing, printmaking, and watercolor papers because they are made from stronger fibres, and warns that recycled paper in general tends to be weaker and more brittle. Mary Tasillo describes newspaper pulp as short, acidic wood fibre.

For a much stronger sheet, recycle 100% cotton rag paper or good handmade scraps, or use cotton linters.

Add a measure of long fibre

Recycled fibre has already been dried at least once, and drying reduces how much fibres can swell and bond again, an effect research calls hornification. If you want to keep using recycled paper, blend in a stronger fibre. Abaca has long fibres compared with recycled paper, and Arnold Grummer's notes recommend adding a small amount to recycled pulp for strength. Start with a small measured share of the batch, note it, and adjust from there.

Blend in short bursts

A blender cuts fibres instead of beating or fibrillating them, as Tasillo notes. Paperslurry's method is a blender full of water with a good handful or two of soaked scraps, and no more, or you risk burning out the motor. Blend until it is pulp, then stop.

Better beating improves a sheet in ways a blender cannot. A Hollander beater fibrillates the fibres, which creates bonding surface and strengthens the sheet. Catherine Nash's article in Hand Papermaking explains the difference.

Press properly

Pressing brings the fibres into contact. Paperslurry notes that a sheet that is only sponge-pressed will be weaker in the long run, because the hydrogen bonds do not form under the same pressure as in a press. Its hand-pressing method starts gently with a sponge, then presses firmly with as much pressure as possible, then goes over the sheet with a rolling pin. Boards with a weight, or a press, go further.

Do not expect sizing to rescue a weak sheet. Timothy Barrett notes that surface sizing can improve folding endurance and abrasion resistance but tends to lower tear resistance.

• Sort your scrap before it goes in the vat. Keep newspaper and glossy stock out, as Nash advises.
• Keep a jar of stronger fibre to add to a weak batch.
• Time your blender runs instead of blending by feel.
• Press the same way every time, and log what you did.

A sheet that has already dried weak cannot be strengthened by pressing or sizing it. Tear it up, re-pulp it, and add better fibre.

Some paper will not improve much. Recycled newspaper is a poor base no matter how well you handle it. If it keeps falling apart after you've tried a stronger mix, change the source paper rather than the process.