The Process

To create a thin sheet of paper the papermaker goes through hundreds of meticulous steps.

01

Raw material extraction

To get the handmade paper you hold in your hand, the first difficult step is to exploit the raw materials.

Currently, they have to go to get bark about 20km away from home because it is a rocky hill and there are no residents, so there are no buffaloes and cows to destroy, so the trees grow naturally. All 6 people took nearly 1 day (8am to 3pm) to get about 3 burdens (12 bunches of 4-5kg).

First, cut the tree down, then use your hand to hit the rock to peel it off and then peel the bark off the trunk. The trunk is left in the forest.

02

Peeling off the shell

After harvesting in the forest, the bark is soaked in clean water to remove the plastic. Then the peeling process begins. This stage requires dexterity and good knife technique. Use a small knife and the tip of your finger to hold the bark firmly to remove the blackest outer bark. Take only the whitest part of the bark. The shell is also used by us to make paper later.
This stage requires the most labor. Therefore, paper making is very suitable for a community of about 5-6 households.

03

Soak and boil ingredients

Raw materials after being peeled will be washed to remove the plastic, then soaked with lime water for a day and a night. The rate is about 10%.
After soaking, the bark is boiled in a pot for about one day and one night. To check if the shell has been boiled nicely, try to pull it with your hand if the thread breaks.

04

Wash and scrub the bark

After boiling, the bark must be washed thoroughly to remove the lime juice completely. After washing, the doctors will use their feet to rub the bark to soften it before pounding it. After boiling, Duong bark will be cleaned again to remove all lime solution. After cleaning, our artisan use their leg to crush the bark for softening before beating process.

05

Step 5: Pound the bark

The bark becomes soft after being rubbed, so it is easier to pound into fibers. The bark is pounded into thousands of tiny fibers, but still retains the length and toughness of the original fibers. This is also one of the big differences between handmade paper and industrial paper.

06

Spin the yarn and soak it in water

After pounding the bark by hand, which requires a lot of effort, the shell will be put into a tank/container for spinning. Currently, artisan households in Bac Ninh and Hoa Binh are using Japanese and Dutch yarn spinning machines to help make the cotton and yarn more even, without losing the fiber's properties.

07

Forming the paper

This is the final step that greatly affects the finished Do paper, so not everyone can do it and the artisans who are responsible for forming the paper often have many years of experience. It seems simple because it only requires operations like dipping the frame into the tank, shaking it a bit and lifting it up to create a piece of paper. However, to be able to roll a thin sheet of paper onto the frame, with the pulp spread evenly and smoothly takes several years of practice, and it is not until your hands are very strong that you are assigned this "great and noble" task.

08

Pressing, drying, peeling and receiving finished Do paper products

When the paper is finished, the artisans will put it down and lift the mold, so the still wet sheets of paper are stacked on top of each other. The next step is to use heavy objects such as wood or stone to press the water out and take the paper to dry in natural sunlight until it is completely dry and then peel off each sheet one by one.