PAPER-MAKING.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 June 1921, Page 3

PAPER-MAKING.

The high price of news print makes the (juedtion of paper making in Australia highly interesting. For Home year* past (says the Melbourne Age) persona connected with newspapers in Western Australia have been experimenting with various clashes of Australian tinv'H-rs. but up till recently were handicapped by the costliness of bleaching materials, which had to be imported. Some tima ago. however, a deposit of alkali was discovered at a place on the Geraldton. line, and this is being landed in Perth at about 30s a ton. This facilitated the work of the Forest Products Laboratory, which, with the assistance of the various newspaper proprietors, has been busily engaged experimenting with paper mak-< ing. Judging from the samples of paper brought to Melbourne by Mr. F. Lovekin, of the Perth Daily News, they have succeeded wonderfully. A model papdr-* making plant, which was purchased at a» cost of £650, was used in the experiments, and the samples produced ara complete, except ior surfacing. It is claimed that news print equal to the best Scandinavian could be produced from karri waste obtained from tha mills. The karri is a very hard timber, the inner portion of which is a mahogany color, but no difficulty was experienced in bleaching it out. The breaking strength of this paper is stated to be IS per cent, greater than the Scandinavian, papers. Of course, with the small quantities being turned out, it is impossible to ascertain with any degree of accuracy tue commercial cost of production, buh it is confidently expected that it can be made at under £l2 a ton. To augment, the plant already in use. an order is being sent to Derby, England, which is the only place where the special grinding stones for making the mechanical, pulp can be obtained. Mr. Benjamin* who is at present in charge, of the laboratory, is engaged in installing a “digester” to deal with five tons of pulp, and.’ this will increase the usefulness of t>he research work and give a better idea of commercial costs. In addition to the paper made from,, karri, Mr. Lovekin showed a representative of the Age samples made from, bleached and unbleached pulp obtained from the Queensland silky, oak, mountain gum, and blackbutt from New South Wales, and the Victorian mountain ash. This latter makes the strongest class of paper, and is thought to be suitable for ledgers and bank papers, ancß sufficient of the timber is obtainable in Victoria to more than supply the needs of the Commonwealth. With regard to karri, the mills are at present spending hundreds of thousands of pounds to have the waste products burned, ao that it would save them an enormous amount of money if, instead of being burnt, these were given to the paper mills at a nominal cost. Three types of paper-making plants have been quoted at £300,000 each, but it is believed that once it is. proved to be a paying proposition the newspaper companies will provide the money to start the industry going.