Apsley Paper Trail
Our graphics class today went on a tour of the paper mill at Apsley, the little bit stuck on the side of Hemel.
Our first task was to move a ball one metre upstream using only paper, water-based glue, a limited amount of masking tape and a bit of cotton. My group took the simple route. Create a tube and roll the ball down it. However, the guy running the place failed to explain a number of things, meaning that idea needed a radical re-think. We therefore came up with the idea of a boat, pulling some cotton, lifting a cradle, tipping the ball into the (now shorter) tube, and rolling it into the river. It worked, albeit not very well, but that was partly due to the lack of a ball to move, and the fact that Matt can’t build boats.
To the delight of each team, I videoed all the attempts, and I will put them online as soon as I finish downloading Anonym.OS.
We also did some printing, which worked amazingly well for the first few people, but then everything got drowned in a sea of water-soluble ink, meaning everything printed thereafter was kind of just a sheet of ink.
My random list for the day is based around our trip, and is a list of weird things that go into the creation of paper:
- Used bank notes
- Grass from Wimbledon
- Elephant dung
- Cocoa
- Coffee powder
- Tea leaves
- Glitter
- Slivers of silver and gold
- Farmyard straw
- Banana skins
Exactly who needs paper containing straw and banana skins, I am not sure, but such is life.
For more info, visit their website: The Paper Trail, Apsley.