Local Industries

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 46, 10 February 1894, Page 9

Local Industries

MATAURA PAPER MILLS. HOW PAPER IS MADE. THE ELECTRIC LIGHT. (Frost Our Own Correspondent.) Our paper mills are all but completed, and will, if all goes well, begin operations next week. The machinery was all manufactured by Messrs Scott and Co., of London, one of the best firms in the world for that class of work, and they also supplied the building, which is constructed mainly of iron. The structure really consists of two buildings, one of two and the other of one storey, standing side by side. The ground dimensions of the two-storeyed building are are 60 x 40 feet, and those of the one-storeyed 100 x 40 feet.

The whole of the machinery is driven by a turbine of 90 horse-power, and as some of your readers may never have seen the interior of a paper-mill or witnessed the process of papermaking, a slight description of these may be of interest. First of all, we get some linen or cotton rags, or some old sacking, or old paper’, old books, newspapers, wrapping or writing papers, tussock or old ropes. We chop the rope and sacking up fairly small, but the other fabrics do not require this at the outset. Then they have to be bleached —that is, have all the colour taken out of them by means of very strong acids, and boiled. After this they are introduced to the beaters, machines which chop the material up very fine, until, in fact, it assumes the form of pulp. It is next dyed to the desired shade. Of course different materials make different paper, varying in hue and quality, and clay and peat are mixed with the rags, etc., to glaze and colour the paper. After the pulp has been thoroughly worked in the beaters it passes into a large tank, and from thence to the paper machine This consists, in the first place, of a huge revolting wire cloth, over which the pulp passes, the water streaming’ from it the while, the pulp, which has now thickened, is passed through a set of rollers, by means of which still more water is extracted. It has now the appearance of wet cardboard, and passes over felt blankets to the drying cylinders. There are ten of these, each about five feet in diameter, with a drying surface of about 90 square feet, they are filled with steam, and thus kept hot, so that by the time the pulp has passed over them it is quite dry, and has only to go through a set of finishing rolls on to a web, after which it is ready to be cut into sheets of any size. The steam for the drying cylinders is supplied by a boiler of 60-horse power. The mills will work night and day, and for night purposes an electric dynamo of 3000 candle power has been erected to supply two Brockie-Pell arc lamps, each of 1000 candle power, in the machine room, and 45 of 16-candle power each, for the boiler and heater rooms. The buildings have been erected under the supervision of Messrs Rennie and Miliar; the machinery by Messrs Thompson and Lowden; the electric light by Mr Postlethwaite; and the smoke stack, boiler, &c., by Mr Little.