Front page · Cosyford Paper Mill
From one sheet at a time to paper by the reel: the mill that grows
It starts as a handmade workshop by the river, all stampers, moulds and a big screw press. Do well, and Mo Reams opens a machine hall next door to make paper by the reel.
Orders come in by phone and through the letterbox: reporter’s notebooks for the Gazette, seed cards for the gardens, bread bags for the bakery, wrapping paper and the Town Hall’s letter paper. Tear up old newspapers, let the waterwheel’s stampers pound them to pulp, dip the mould and shake it even, couch it onto the felt, squeeze it in the screw press and brush it dry on the warm wall. Then fold it, cut it, stamp it or hold it up to the lightbox.
Send off enough and the mill scales up. A machine hall opens through the side door, run off the river: tap logs into the debarking drum and drag round to tumble the bark off, feed them to the chipper, tip chips and bales of old paper into the pulper and beat it smooth.
Then the paper machine itself. The headbox lays the pulp on the moving wire, a red wheel for each lane: tap any lane that goes thin or lumpy to keep the web even. Lead the paper over and under the steam cans to the reel, cut the reel at the line, and the hoist takes it to the slitter. Two swings of the knives make three reels, and the hoist lowers them onto the electric lorry at the loading door. The special orders still get made by hand in the workshop.
