Week 12: Experiment Report

 

For the class on Wednesday, I spent most of my time doing my mold since without the mold I cannot do the following experiment. Special thanks to Marcela and Andy who helped me so much during the making process, without them, I cannot make the mold at all.

So at first Andy and I drew a draft of the frame of the mold. We basically follow the mold making from a Youtube video. We went to the wood lab and decided to make it by hand. We chose some thinker wood pieces, cut them into the length of 30/27 cms and pin them together. One of the most difficult things I have met is the use of the net: it is even more important than the frame. At first, I wanted to use the window screen net from home, but it is too big and thick liquid could pass it. Marcela advised me to use the leftover materials from the trash fashion show and it worked pretty well. With Marcela’s help, I stapled the net on the frame, and the final mold looked pretty well. The potential problem is that since the net is soft and easy to change its shape, the surface of the net is uneven, which may lead to the problem that the paper is not flat. I will do the experiment later and see how it goes. 

 

Update:

I failed but I still got some paper 🙂 

I recorded the main making process of making the paper and the video is below. If the video is too boring/having a better feeling watching the video please listen to music.

 

 

 

A few pictures of the final product/leftovers:

      

 

Challenges:

During the making process, I have met some challenges. The first one is which mode to use of the blender. I know this sounds a little silly but it matters. At first, I used the “Rapid soya-bean milk” mode, and it was HEATING. The heating costs time and the vapor also worsen the making process. Later I figured out that the “juice” or “icy smoothie” mode works better since it neither heat nor requires a long time. The juice mode works especially well. 

Another challenge is to use which side to filter. Actually, it is easy as long as you follow the tutorial but I messed it up a few times. The frame with net should be put above another frame, with the net between them. The mistake made me repeat the filter process, which may also be a reason why my final product is not as good as I have imagined. 

 

Future improvements:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. As the pictures above have shown, the uneven surface does cause a lot of problems. The wet paper is too easy to break or stick together, especially the marginal area. I am going to buy a new net from Taobao and remake the mold, and experiment again to see if it works. Also during this experiment, I spent too much time on drying, therefore I also buy some new sponge (the one designed for absorbing water, since the previous one is more like a cleaning sponge) and towels that can absorb water well. 
2. The critical problem I have met is the amount of water. Most tutorial videos I have watched don’t give a specific amount of water. When pouring the thick liquid out of the blender I thought there was too little water since the liquid is too thick — it looks like black sesame paste… However, when I started to dry, I feel there was too much water in the paper. I am not sure if this has to do with the uneven net surface or not, but it does bother a lot and prevents me from having a healthy piece of paper. 
3. Before the experiment, since I once wanted to build a connection between our campus store and the remaking paper inside the academic building, I went to the campus store and asked them how many notebooks they are selling every week/month. The worker there said they don’t know the actual number (maybe they just don’t want to tell me 🙁 ) but it was a lot. But making one piece of paper in the experiment took me more than 4 hours. I told myself it would be slow but 4 hours is still far longer than my expectation. I think with practice I might shrink the time to around 1 hour but it is still too long. I don’t know if I can really make products through this. 

 

Updaate:

I bought the third kind of material I am using for the deckle… It is still too soft for the deckle mold. I am buying the stainless steel net and see if it works.

This material (polyamide fabric) is still too soft and will fall down naturally.

 

Updaaate:

My friend gives me a lot of paper… The source part of my hypothesis of building a cycle inside the school works now. Hope the bridge works too.