2004-04-16 - 4:27 p.m.

OKay, so...some of y'all are brilliant...and I'm hoping it'll come through here.

This is what I want to accomplish:

I want to create good quality linen paper using as close to a "proper" medieval technique as possible.

Some of it is easy...the fundamentals of putting pulp in a tub, pulling sheets on a screen, interlacing them with felt and pressing in a screw press to dry, then coating with gelatin and burnishing with a rock...those techniques haven't really changed much in 500 years, so they are relatively easy to replicate.

The problem, alas, is making the pulp.

Modern pulpmaking uses a thing called a "Hollander", which is essentially a blender on steroids. It shreds the linen stalks into a nice pulp fairly quickly and easily.

My initial research into how it was done "back then" indicates that they used a thing called a stamping mill, which was essentially big heavy hammers powered by water wheels which pounded the linen rags into pulp.

Problem, I don't *have* a big heavy hammer, nor do I have a stream.

(there's also the issue of how to replicate the retting of the linen--which is essentially letting it rot--without having a divorce or health department condemnation of the place, but that's for another time).

So...any brilliant engineers out there who can figure out a way to make stamping happen, ideally with some sort of relatively simple mechanized motion?

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