making paper

A number of you asked about making paper, designing font, and other technical aspects of the book.

I thought you would enjoy this video of students and apprentices at the University of Iowa Center for the Book making paper. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEjZiPmRAV8&feature=share&list=PL837E9D2803517413   The video teaches the viewer that there were many steps needed to create paper that is used for printing on the hand press. Imagine how many sheets are needed for each book a printer made. First you have to calculate the number of copies, say 250. Then look at the manuscript to determine how many pages there are in the book, say 64. Now calculate how many pages fit on a sheet when you impose the book as a quarto or octavo (divide by either 8 or 16 - my math fails me here). Finally, you need to make extra sheets because there will be errors. And that's a short book. Now imagine a book of 300 pages. 

This second video describes how to make recycled paper on a continuous roll http://youtu.be/7SdJtYkAzTw

For those of you curious about how type is cast, you'll want to watch these videos from the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Holland part 1 http://youtu.be/dthT9thCOrM and part 2 http://youtu.be/L7ICWE3Qko8 and part 3 http://youtu.be/-BXeuhvhqS4
Watch the wrist action as the type caster forces the liquid into the mold. 

This 35 minute video describes how linotype is made and pages are composed. http://youtu.be/EzilaRwoMus This type of printing began in the late 19th century and continued until computerized printing in the early 1960s.

Please let me know if you find more visual examples or videos that explain how paper is made or type is case.