Glossary: The Language of Papermaking
  • Chipmill:
    Place where logs are "debarked" (bark removed), and chopped into wood chips – the first stage in papermaking process.
  • Stacker:
    big conveyor that took pulpwood up to the top of the woodpile in the yard.
  • Scaler Shack:
    where the bales of pulp would be weighed coming into the mill.
Pulp Terms
  • Types of pulp: wood pulp
    • Mechanical: wood is ground to a very fine dust
    • Chemical:
      • (soda process) wood chips are cooked with a caustic soda (lye), a strong alkali
      • (sulphite process) wood chips are cooked with calcium bisulphite, an acid
      • (sulphate process) wood chips cooked with sodicum hydroxide, sodium carbonate and sodium sulphate.
  • Digester:
    A huge upright cylinder constructed with a steel shell and an inner lining of acid-resistant firebrick. About 25 tons of pulp can be produced from each charge of wood chips. Usually a large mill with have several digesters. Chips are passed into the digester on a movable chute, water and chemicals are added and they are cooked under pressure.

  • Blow Tank:
    after the pulp is cooked, the pulp is blown by steam pressure from the digester through the blow pipe into the blow pit. This is a huge tank made of wood or cement and lined with tile. It has a false bottom made of perforated steel that allows the water, but not the pulp to flow through. The pulp is washed here and thinned by adding water so that it can be pumped to other tanks.

  • Beaters:
    A tank usually holds about 1500 pounds of completed stock (mixture of pulp and other ingredients). A Hollander type contains a large roll about five feet in diameter equipped with steel knives, one-fourth inch thick running over a bed plate containing forty-two knives. As the roll revolves, each of the knives comes in contact with the forty-two bed plates so that the stock is subjected to 3276 blows per revolution. Various ingredients or "Furnish" are added to the beater depending on the grade of paper. The function is to cut the fibres to a certain length, brush them into a similar direction so that they are more flexible and each fibre is crushed and split as a result. In addition, the fibres absorb water and become coated with a thin, sticky film of hydrated cellulose which, when dried, adheres to the neighboring fibre. This action is called "hydration of the fibre." The best paper is made from well-beaten stock, properly hydrated.

    1. Free stock:
      when the fibre becomes too long and loses strength.

    2. Slow stock:
      when the stock has a close formation and snappy feel.

  • Furnish:
    various ingredients used in the composition of paper including wood pulp, and/or rags, filler (clay), size (rosin and soda ash), alum, dyes. Different grades of paper use different amounts of each of these ingredients.

    1. Rags:
      the word rag is used to designate a wide range of raw materials. Clean white cotton or linen rags are converted into pulp. They are first sorted, cleaned, boiled in a solution of milk of lime and soda ash which removes the grease and softens the material, then they are bleached and washed. The rags are put in the beater before bleaching.

    2. Soda pulp:
      this pulp is prepared by cooking wood chips in a digester with caustic soda. This creates a shorter fibre and softer stock than other processes.

    3. Filler:
      The term "loading" is applied to the addition of various mineral substances such as clay or aluminum silicate or talc. The purpose of filler is to produce opacity and improve the surface of paper.

  • Pulp Tester:
    a worker who checks a sample of stock to determine its strength, opacity and brightness.

  • Barracuda:
    an enclosed system for bleaching pulp without dangerous fumes venting into work area.

  • Attenuating tank:
    first place pulp is pumped before going into head box.

  • Head Box:
    where pulp is stored to be pumped out over the wire to make paper.

  • Sizing:
    a starch added to paper that makes paper resistant to ink bleeding.

    Paper Terms

    • "Line Shaft:"
      the shaft directly connected to the turbine; belts ran off the shaft and powered the machines.

    • "Wet end:"
      the part of the paper machine where pulp slurry is added to the machine in the "stuff chest". It then goes to a mixing box (head box) where water is added. From there it passes onto fine mesh screens in the Fourdrinier Paper machine.

    • Fourdrinier Paper Machine:
      this machine is named after the person who developed it in 1800 in London. It is a machine consisting of a device for allowing carefully screened pulp of a constant consistency to flow onto a horizontal wire screen made in the form of an endless belt traveling away from the point where the pulp flows onto it. A shaking motion is imparted to this screen enabling the fibres to "felt" or lay properly. The water in the pulp drains through the wire, this drainage being assisted by suction boxes applied under the wire at certain points and a suction roll at the extreme end over which the wire travels. A water mark is sometimes impressed on the paper and is made by rotating a long wire-covered cylinder or dandy on the wire between the suction boxes. These dandy rolls are specially made, with slightly raised designs across the face and embedded in the wet paper, causing a displacement of fibres so that when the finished sheet is held to the light, the design is slightly transparent. As the paper leaves the wire, it is very wet, so it is passed between two sets of felt covered rolls which press out the remaining water. It then passes through a smoothing press. This is then dried between a felt and a long series of stem heated iron cylinders. When it contains only 4% moisture, it is immersed in a size (such as starch) O and squeezed between the size rolls in order to remove excess size. Size increases the strength and stiffens the sheet. The paper is now re-dried by s short set of driers until it contains about 6% moisture. Finally, the paper passes through polished calender rolls to give it a finish and onto reels where it is wound into rolls. The following are parts of the paper machine (see illustration):

      • Breast Roll
      • Table Rolls
      • Wire
      • Dandy Roll: A light wire roll that smoothes the sheet of paper as it is being formed on the screen. It also imparts a watermark.
      • Suction Boxes
      • Couch Roll
      • Presses
      • Felts: blankets that the wet paper is carried on as it passes onto the steam-heated dryer rolls.
      • Paper
      • Dryers: Blasts of hot air come from below a long ribbon of paper as it travels forward through the increasing temperatures of the drying chamber.
      • Size Press

    • Condensate tanks:
      where the water from cooling steam was collected to be recycled back to the boiler

    • Calender:
      a smooth or polished appearance is desired on certain grades of paper. This finish is obtained by passing the paper through a machine containing a series of polished rolls upon which a heavy pressure is applied. The polished surface of the rolls irons, or smoothes out the rough surface on the paper. There are three types of calenders in general use, the super calender, sheet calender, and breaker calender, each imparting a different finish to the paper. The super calender is used for the finishing of machine dried paper in rolls requiring a super or very high polish such as map and ledger papers; in order to obtain this super finish the calender is fitted with alternate rolls of steel and compressed paper. These paper rolls are relatively soft and impart somewhat clearer finsih thatn the steel, resulting in a super polish or finish as the name Super Calender implies. The sheet calender is used for finishing sheets of loft dried Ledger papers. Loft dried bonds are finished on a Breaker Calender, which is a Sheet Calender containing only two steel rolls and is used only on papers requiring very little polish.

    • Embosser:
      special roll that puts a ripple or other non-smooth finish on paper.

    • Long Nest:
      a 3-part section of the paper machine

    • Coating (or Coater):
      a machine that brushes coating onto the web of paper so that both sides are coated. Coating is a mixture of various substances usually on a base of clay, titanium oxide and other pigments suspended in a casein solution.

    • Plating:
      the plater is essentially a heavily constructed calender consisting principally of two large steel rolls geared together and set apart to allow a pack or form built up of alternate sheets of linen fabric paper and zinc to pass between them. This form is then passed between the plater rolls several times, resulting in a sheet of paper showing the imprint of the linen on its surface. A large variety of finishes are obtained by using different fabrics for the linen.

    • Finishing:
      the paper is rewound onto rolls, cut into sheets, inspected and packaged. Equipment in the finishing room includes rewinders, cutters, trimmers, core machines, and saws.

    • Measurex System:
      a machine used to compare color and other criteria to a standard sample by computer.

    • Bindery:
      where workers bound samples of paper together to send samples to customers.

    • Skids:
      large pallets of paper not individually wrapped.

    • Folio Sheeter:
      a precision sheeter on the 100 inches line

    • Repack:
      an entry-level job at Georgia Pacific making packaged assortments of colors of tissue.

    • Converting:
      making basic tissue into products like toilet tissue or paper towels GP mill.

    • Adjusters:
      mechanics

    • P.M.:
      preventive maintenance

    • Chemical Feed man:
      took care of boiler chemistry

    • Shafter:
      puts 12-foot metal shafts in rolls before they are loaded onto machines

    • Parent sized sheets:
      first cut size

    • Wire Puller:
      snipped wires on bails and removed the wires

    • Splicer:
      machine that attached ends of rolls to each other as they fed through the machines.

    • Rod Coating:
      a way of coating papers by running paper over a coater roll, then passing it under a wire rod to thin the coating to specified thickness

    • Cookie:
      trimmed off ends of rolled goods-recycled into pulp.

    • Broke:
      scraps, trims and mistakes: of paper that is picked up and brought back to be re-beaten into the pulp slurry. A "broke hustler" is an entry-level position. The worker picks up the scraps, puts them in a cart and brings them to the stock preparation area.

    • Haying:
      the procedure used when paper broke on the roll. A wide sheet of paper was run through to clear out broken bits and reconnect the paper.

    • Roll Truck:
      a kind of forklift that carried finished rolls of paper to storage or back to be cut or embossed.

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