My recipe for Paper Mache

[47137]

I want to try out paper mache for some scenery instead of my usual plaster bandage. I'm really writing this down so I can make it again the same way. This is fun to make, but it is very important to use your own tools in the kitchen. Not the ones for preparing food.

Tools and materials:
Cross-cut shredder
Food blender - I bought an Argos 'Value range' one to do this
Sieve - metal
Measuring jug - glass (500 ml or larger)
Measuring spoon or cup (10 ml is a useful size)
Small packet of wallpaper paste powder
Mixing bowl - glass
Fork or whisk
Plastic container with air-tight lid

Method:
1. Use the shredder on at least 30 sheets of A4 paper, hopefully this is part of the usual office process. White paper with black laser-printed ink will make a pale blue mix.

2. Put about 250 ml (half a pint) of water into the blender and add some paper shreddings. Mix for ten seconds, add more paper and mix again. Repeat this until the mixture seems to be saturated with paper, and then blend for another minute. Don't add so much paper as to make the motor complain.

3. Remove the water/paper mixture from the blender and do everything you can to remove the water from the mixture to reduce it to a soft pulp. I squeezed mine it into a kitchen sieve, rolled it out on layers of newspaper and even put the mix into a microwave (2 minutes at 750W). Make the pulp as dry as you can.

4. Make sure the blender motor is cool, then make up more pulp as needed, I made up about 600 ml dry mix in all. Clean up the blender and the work area.

5. Calculate the quantity of wallpaper paste powder needed to make 250 ml (half a pint) of paste. For a small packet of Wilko own-brand wallpaper paste you get 200 ml of powder to make 6 pints of standard mix, so 20 ml of paste will make a slightly stronger mix for 250 ml of water. Mix up the paste in the measuring jug. I think 250 ml is the smallest practical volume to make a good even mix.

6. Pour half of the wallpaper paste mix into the mixing bowl and slowly stir in the pulp. Add as much pulp as you can. If you go too far, add more paste. The idea is to end up with a heavy slurry which resembles a thick soup.

7. Store the finished mixture in an airtight container in the fridge.

 

You can apply this mix as a filler between small gaps or as a surface in its own right, and it will taper down to a very thin edge. If you keep the maximum thickness down to 3 mm or so, drying becomes visible after 12 hours (by change of colour) and the mix is set after 36 hours. It will stick to wood, resin, plaster and stone, but will discolour paper textures.

 

I used wallpaper paste because it contains a fungicide; but flour and water paste would probably work.

 

Hope this is useful to someone else.

- Richard.

[rue_d_etropal]

good to see a separate thread.

As I have mentioned before, following a thread on another forum back in 2007/8, I started experimenting with my own mash, without any glue added.

 

I now use it for both my model railway scenery and my art work. Leaving out the added glue does mean it takes longer to dry, but I don't find that a problem, as there are always plenty of other jobs to do. I also think my mash is a lot lighter weight than if I added glue. I have also found that a less dense mash will still dry and is featherweight.

After starting with newspaper and eventually getting fed up with all the ink coming off on my hands, I now use cardboard, and also recycle old dried mash, so when you rebuild you models, it is easy to use it in the next mash.

 

one other tool that is useful, but has to be used very carefully, is a hot air gun. This will speed up drying, but it is also very easy to set it on fire so should only be done ith extreme caution. I have not yet set smoke alarms off in my workshop, so I am hopefully doing it right.

 

Just found the original thread, had not realised it was so long ago.

http://gn15.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2052&p=24413&hilit=blender#p24413

 

I thought we had discovered something new, until I came across the term 'paper casting', which covers this type of paper mash. I still think of it as the original papier mache, before people started adding glue and some very dodgy chemicals. It was the 'plastic' of its day.

[47137]

As I have mentioned before, following a thread on another forum back in 2007/8, I started experimenting with my own mash, without any glue added.

 

. . .

 

I now use it for both my model railway scenery and my art work. Leaving out the added glue does mean it takes longer to dry, but I don't find that a problem, as there are always plenty of other jobs to do. I also think my mash is a lot lighter weight than if I added glue.

 

. . . 

 

I thought we had discovered something new, until I came across the term 'paper casting', which covers this type of paper mash. I still think of it as the original papier mache, before people started adding glue and some very dodgy chemicals. It was the 'plastic' of its day.

Not sure about some of the details here. From what I have read so far, paper mache goes back to around 200 BC and the technique always uses a binder (a glue):

http://www.papiermache.co.uk/articles/history-of-papier-mache/

 

Moulded paper (no glue) is a perfectly valid approach, but surely it is a technique in its own right?

 

Both techniques use water to make them malleable and they set by evaporation of the water. The weight of the glue components in paper mache is quite small - around 10 grams of wallpaper paste powder for the 250 ml paste mix I described above, so I don't think this has a great influence on the final weight after drying.

 

I'm experimenting with paper mache as ballast too. Would it be fair to say, paper mache (with its binder) is good as a filler and to build up surfaces locally on a layout, whereas moulded paper is more suited to sub-assemblies you make on the bench and then attach to the layout?

 

- Richard.

[14Steve14]

I once tried the paper mache pulp method of scenic modelling and found that for ground cover it gave too smooth a finish. I even tried using it instead od das modelling clay and it worked fine. Where I lived there was a timber yard and I asked if I could have a bag of saw dust. They gave me a huge bag, which lasted for years.

 

I added this sawdust into the paper pulp and after a few trials and tribulations I had a messy gloop that could be used to model scenery perfectly. All I had to do was to carefully add a bit more wallpaper paste and water to make the whole lot workable, but not too wet that it takes an absolute age to dry. Once dry it could be cut through across baseboards joints and remained hard as long as it was all sealed, which I used emulsion paint for. The model lasted for years. Adding the sawdust also took away the painstaking requirement of having to make more paper pulp.

[rue_d_etropal]

I have used my mash in many ways, including scenery on layouts, not built separately. First time used a cage wire(stronger than chicken wire) framework, so I could use hot air gun to dry it and second time a pink insulation base, so just left it to dry.

I am sure there were various methods used in the past, but the term papier mache is relatively recent when it became popular tin Europe. This evolved into what was quite industrial, and paper and wood pulp was just one ingredient. I think even cotton waste was used.

I have found weight is possibly as dependent on how much paper is added, and only advantage for me to adding more paper is that there is less water to evaporate.

I have found that other traditional methods of creating scenery have ended up with layouts far too heavy to move. I have tried a lot of the ways people use and have found my method using mashed paper is the best.

Looking at the list of instructions above, I have tried most of them, including shredding the paper and found no advantage.

One reason I don't use the term papier mache, is that most people associate it with sticking paper around balloons to make face masks, and the term 'paper casting' is what many artists refer to mashed paper pressed into moulds, along with some other techniques. I have googled the subject, it is not my idea. I have just adapted what I have found out..

One thing I do suggest, is that people interested try out various mixtures and ways to mash paper and cardboard. I used to think I had lots of waste paper and cardboard until i started mashing it, then I found I had to go out searching for it.

 

Another thing about wall paper paste. It does contain fungicide, so handle it with care. I remember teachers at my children's school saying they used to use it until they realised the risks, so switched to PVA glue, but there are still potential risks we don't necessarily know about. I came across a 'safe for children' water based glue a few years ago, but it was not as easy to use as glue, but it is actually ideal for water effects such as ponds and canals . I then came to conclusion there was no suitable totally safe glue so used no glue in my mash at all. There is so much glue in the paper, it can be mashed at least twice, so nothing goes to waste.

 

 

Interestingly I do use a paper shredder but actually add the shredded paper to cheap emulsion paint to create a textured paint/plaster. I have not seen it mentioned elsewhere so do claim the idea as mine. I have also added various stone chip and wood dust, and they are all useful methods to create scenery, but paint is heavy. Also like plaster, once it dries it can't be re-used.

[Fat Controller]

You may well find the fungiside in the paste rather useful, especially if the papiére-maché is to be used in a room with high humidity or poor ventilation; when I used some for the scenery on a model in a shed at my parents' house, I came back to some 'growing' countryside, where fungi had appeared.

Whilst we of the 'Blue Peter' generation associate the material with masks and model railways, in the pre-plastic era, papiére-maché was used to make ornaments for houses, quite often elaborately decorated with paint and gilding.

[rue_d_etropal]

the papier mache used for ornaments and furniture is not very different to MDF type material. it was a mixture of paper/wood material and chemicals to stick it together. I think old cloth was also added on occasions. The victorians did not call it recycling.They just saw waste as throwing away money.

I have only had a problem with papier mache when it has not dried properly, and then in a damp atmosphere it can go rotten. One reason I only mix up enough mash to use . I feel a lot safer not adding glue such as all paper paste. Even the ink in newsprint slightly concerned me, so when I found my hands still clean after mashing cardboard I felt happier. Might still be a problem.

For workshops I have given I use toilet roll paper double soaked in water, as I know there should be nothing harmful in that paper.