The term is, however, now also applied to a common paper made of mechanical wood pulp with perhaps a little chemical pulp, used for tram tickets, cheap advertising circulars, common calendar cards, and similar purposes, to which no outer surface of a special character is added.
Continuous Board Machine.
This machine differs from the single board machine in that the finished board can be produced from the pulp at one operation. It is used principally for cards and boards of moderate thickness which can be wound up in the form of a reel at the end of the machine.
The mixture of pulp and water is pumped into two or more vats and formed into a number of thin sheets, which are all brought together between squeezing rolls and passed through heavy press rolls which compress the several layers into a compact mass. The thick sheet obtained is dried over steam-heated cylinders which are placed at the end of the press rolls, and calendered. The whole process, indeed, resembles that of ordinary paper-making, the main difference being the method of producing the wet sheet or card.
Some machines are constructed with six or seven vats and forty to fifty drying cylinders, and are capable of turning out a large quantity of finished material.
The board can be made of uniform quality and texture throughout, or be finished off with high-grade paper on one or both sides. In the latter case the constituents of the “middle” part are waste papers and raw material of inferior quality, the outer surface of wood pulp, white or coloured according to circumstances. The variety of papers and boards which can be produced is due to the fact that the several vats of pulp are independent of one another and can be filled with any kind of paper stock. The combined sheets forming the ultimate board are dried on the ordinary cylinders, calendered, and reeled up at the end of the machine.
[CHAPTER VII]
SPECIAL KINDS OF PAPER
There are many varieties of paper products obtained by submitting finished paper to a number of special processes. Of these only a few of the more important will be described.