Login
or
Register
Subscriber & Member Login
Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!
Login
Register
Home
»
Model Railroader
»
Forums
»
Prototype information for the modeler
»
western paper mills
Edit post
Edit your reply below.
Post Body
Enter your post below.
It depends on the papers that the mill is producing and how many lines it has. The paper industry has steadily closed mills while significantly raising the productivity of existing mills. A few new mills have been built but these are in the minority. Mills will have anywhere from 50 to over a couple of hundred recipes for all the paper they produce. Almost all paper is a blend of hard and soft woods, each type of fiber lending a characteristic. As M.W. Hemphill mentions a lot of mills have an onsite pulping process but may still have been supplied bales of pulped bats of hardwood or softwood made at other plants. The pulping process is interesting in that they age the chips. Softwood is aged 5-7 days and Hardwood is aged 3-5 days. Theses same ingredients plus other parts of the recipe are mixed to produce kraft paper or tissue paper and almost anything between. Both of these come from the same mill but from two different lines. Mills west of the Cascades use Douglas Fir, Western Hemlock (these two are so characteristically the same they are also referred to as Hem/Fir though untreated hemlock has low resistance to rot) and to a small degree Spruce for it's softwood part of the blend. Western Red Alder, Big Leaf Maple are usually part of the hardwood component. East of the Cascades will see Hem/Fir replaced with a variety of Pine. Ponderosa Pine being a big one for Oregon, California and Washington. The species will change with location but the paper produced is to an industry standard. But there is a lot of latitude with in a standard. More and more paper of certain types have to perform under secondary (e.g. high speed colored print) and even terciary (e.g. envelope insertion) machine process. Labratory analysis will determine what part of the country your 20# bond came from.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag
Update Reply
Subscriber & Member Login
Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!
Login
Register
Users Online
There are no community member online
Search the Community
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Model Railroader Newsletter
See all
Sign up for our FREE e-newsletter
and get model railroad news in your inbox!
Sign up