Thin Straw and Bamboo Pulp Paper for Gold leaf making

Straw paper for gold leaf packing

Thin Straw Pulp Papers are being made in some rural areas of Myanmar as a cottage industry. The first stage of making its process is sinking dried straw into lime solution lasting at least seven days to about one month.
These hard straws cook in steamer for twenty-four hours to become it soft. After cooking it, the straws wash with water to clean lime. Then, it dries sun heat. After that it is pounded to get pulp. The pulp mixes with water according to ratio and stirs it thoroughly. The mixture is poured onto the clothing tray.

The bubbles on the surface of the mixture are removed by stick. This is to prevent from become holes on paper. After that the trays are leaned to sieve water. Now you can see the golden pulp stuck on clothing tray. These trays are put in the sunshine to dry pulps. When these are dry, they become paper. These papers are taken out and cut in required size. Thin straw pulp papers are used last stage in gold leaf packing for sale.
As making thin straw pulp paper is a cottage industry, this is surviving as a traditional work in rural areas of Myanmar.

Bamboo paper for gold leaf making

The process of making Straw and Bamboo paper is almost same but the different is time consumption between the straw and bamboo paper-making. Bamboo is cut into pieces and sink into lime solution for 3 years.

Good quality paper will not come out if less than 3 years in lime solution. The best time to cut Bamboo for paper is in the beginning of raining season and one year old bamboos. When after bamboo paper are cut in 6 inches square, every twelve cutting paper is sandwiched with one wet paper for twenty-four hours. After that, the sandwiched papers are placed on steal plate and beat it with hard wood stick. By doing so, bamboo paper become like wax paper but strong resistance for heat and pounding pressure and gold particles will not stick on paper as well. After all these stages, the paper is ready.