Chương 234: 231. Papermaking - Part I

Kivamus nodded and took the frame in his hands, looking at it from all sides. Truthfully, while its quality was far from what could be made on modern earth, he wasn't expecting even this quality from a completely handmade frame of mould and mesh.

"This will work well enough." Putting the frame down on the table, he looked at the carpenter.

"Come back here tomorrow evening so you can nail the rest of the meshes on the remaining frames. Cedoron should be able to make most of the meshes by then. For the rest of your time, you should keep working on the third crossbow." Darora gave a nod.

"As you wish. In that case I'll take my leave now so I can get some more work done before it gets dark."

"I should go as well," Cedoron said.

"I think I should be able to finish another mesh by sunset."

"Alright," Kivamus nodded and waved them away.

"Duvas, let's go and see how other things are going." The majordomo nodded, and they started walking to the eastern gate of the manor while passing near the training grounds in the southeast of the manor. Once they reached closer they saw the guard captain engaged in a mock fight with two guards at the same time.

They waited for a while for them to finish the fight - which basically meant seeing Hudan beating up the two guards while they tried to defend futilely - before Kivamus beckoned him over when the two guards yielded. Hudan jogged towards them, and Kivamus told him to bring a couple of more guards with him. Once he and Duvas were accompanied by the guard captain and two more guards, they exited the eastern gates of the manor and saw the village walls around a hundred meters away from them.

However, they didn't need to walk that far. Nearly halfway there, he saw two sites where servants were engaged in work, so they started walking towards them. Reaching closer to the first site, he saw that there was a servant keeping an eye on a ceramic pot that had a small hole on the bottom side as well. They had taken this pot from the kitchen and made a small hole on the bottom side and tied a thick cloth on it.

Using a makeshift stand from three wooden sticks, that pot had been suspended above another normal pot, and then the double sided pot was filled around halfway with wood ashes, before pouring some hot water in it to completely cover the ashes. The water had slowly passed through the ashes and started coming out from the bottom of the double sided pot through the cloth tied on it, before it had started to collect in the normal pot on the bottom.

It had taken until the afternoon for all the water to pass through the ashes from the double sided pot, and as it passed through the ashes, it collected the lye, which meant the water flowing from the fabric had collected some of the lye in it, but the ashes were prevented by the cloth from passing through it.

Eventually, a servant had reported to him in the afternoon that the bottom pot had collected all the water that had dripped, so he had told them to take the bottom pot which had collected the mixture of water and lye, and dump it through the double sided pot again, this time going through a fresh pile of ashes. This way, that same water would get a higher concentration of lye, since it would collect even more lye from the new batch of ashes.

Right now it seemed like the water had again stopped dripping from the double sided pot, so he ordered the servants to repeat the process once again. Giving a nod, the servant emptied the double sided pot of the used ashes and put a fresh batch of ashes in it from an earthen container nearby, and hung the pot in that makeshift stand of the wooden sticks.

Then he took the pot from the bottom, and poured all of the liquid it had into the double sided pot, before quickly putting it on the bottom again so it could start collecting the mixture of water and lye. Once that was done, the servant checked the other similar arrangements nearby, where more such double sided pots having ash and water in it, were dripping into other containers on the bottom.

Calling over the servant, he explained, "Leave these pots here overnight, since concentrating it three times will be more than enough for our purposes. Tomorrow morning we will pour all the water and lye mixture in a big container and boil it to get a stronger solution of lye. Make sure not to touch this lye even by mistake, since it will burn you severely." Once the servant nodded, he left him to keep an eye on the process, and moved to the second site.

Here, a servant was pouring hot water in a container which had a lot of animal hairs in it, while repeatedly agitating and compressing the mixture. That would cause the fibres to hook together and weave into a single piece of fabric, since every single hair had tiny scales, and heat, motion and moisture caused the scales to open, while agitating the mixture caused them to latch onto each other, creating felt. Stolen novel; please report.

Close to him, another servant had taken a container which had the process already complete, and after pouring out the water, he had wrapped the resulting mixture over a burlap cloth which was itself wrapped around a branch, before being covered by another piece of burlap cloth tied around it. This would make it easier for the fibres to settle and dry, and would speed up the felting process. Waiting until both of the servants were free, he called them over.

"It seems to be going well. Leave the felt wrapped overnight, and by tomorrow we should be able to take out the newly created felt."

"Of course, milord," the servants nodded, before returning to their work.

"It still doesn't seem like we are close to making paper," Duvas commented.

"Are you sure you have made paper in the past?" Kivamus couldn't stop a laugh from coming out.

"I never said that I had made paper myself, but I have read about the process in some books, and I know how it works. Don't worry, this is only the first part. We will come here tomorrow for the next step."

It was late afternoon of the next day and Kivamus was visiting the east of the manor once again, along with Duvas, Hudan and a few other guards. Truthfully, the paper simply couldn't be made in a good quality until they had the trip hammer ready, but he had already started the papermaking process, and he wanted to see it to completion, even if the final result left something to be desired.

Once they had the trip hammer ready in the future, they would be able to do it at a larger scale, but for now manual power would still be able to make paper here. Looking around, he saw that by this time they had a good amount of lye gathered in a big container, so they were ready for the next step.

While the lye had already been concentrated by evaporating the water from the diluted mixture of lye and water in the morning, he had told the servants not to dry it completely - which would create crystals of lye - since then they would need to make a solution of it again anyway. Nearby, in the empty space east of the manor, there were a few sheets of felt ready as well, which were hung on a piece of rope to dry more.

The newly crafted wooden tub was also kept on one side, which Darora had delivered earlier in the morning, along with a few wooden beaters. A servant had also brought a few loads of sawdust using a wheelbarrow, and dumped it on one side. A few barrels of water were kept nearby for use where needed. By now most of the moulds and deckles were also ready with the wire mesh nailed on the mould frames.

He had also ordered them to bring a couple of wooden benches here, since he knew that today's process would take some time, and they would need to take rest in the middle. Finally, he looked at the small gathering of servants, guards as well as a few labourers from the village and clapped loudly.

"Okay, let's begin! Now one of you, take a basket and start putting the sawdust in the big wooden tub. You," he pointed at another labourer, "bring some water and start filling the tub so the sawdust is barely submerged." Once that was done, he told the labourers to use wooden sticks to start blending the mixture together so it would get into a more even consistency. The process took a while and the labourers looked tired by now, so he told them to get some rest.

"Now the fun part." he looked at Hudan and the guards.

"Time to use your muscles. Pick up the beaters and start beating that slush."

"Uh..." Hudan frowned.

"We are supposed to beat this... slurry of sawdust?"

"That's what I said," Kivamus grinned.

"Consider it a new type of training until the labourers have rested a little." Hudan looked at the other guards.

"Well, come on lads! Let's show what we are made of!" With that, the guards started beating the slurry enthusiastically, while one of them kept mixing the slurry once in a while. After more than an hour - where the guards took turns to rest and continue beating the slurry - Kivamus held up his hand.

"Okay, that's enough for now." Immediately there were sighs of relief, and the guards stepped back, some of them sitting on the bench to rest. Gesturing the servants to come over, he began, "Now drain the excess water from this mixture and put the remaining slurry into the cauldron. Then start a fire under it, and then pour some of the lye into it. Be careful that none of its splatters on any of you."

The servants carried out the order cautiously, and soon there were a few wooden branches burning under the cauldron, making the mixture start to boil. They continued to boil it for some time while stirring it once in a while, so the sawdust would get an even more uniform consistency, while the lye would make the wood fibres even more pliable. After a while, when most of the water had evaporated, he decided that it was enough.

"Okay, now remove the branches from the bottom of the cauldron, so this slurry can start cooling down." The servants carried out the order, while the rest of the people waited with anticipation.