What is gramature paper for crafts

What Is Paper?
True paper is characterized as thin sheets made from fiber that has been macerated until each individual filament is a separate unit. Medieval paper was made of diluted cotton, linen fiber. (Hunter 1943, 117) The fibers are then intermixed with water and by the use of a sieve-like screen, the fibers are lifted from the water leaving a sheet of matted fiber on the screen. The thin layer of intertwined fiber is paper.
(Hunter 1943, 5)
Many people include think of papyrus and rice paper as paper. They are not. Papyrus is not made from macerated fiber so, it is not true paper. Papyrus is made from a grasslike aquatic plant in the sedge family called Cyperus papyrus. It has woody, bluntly triangular stems that are cut or sliced end to end with metal knife. Then these thin "boards" are pasted together much like laminated wood. (http://education.Yahoo.Com/search/be?Lb=t&p=url%3Ap/papyrus )
Rice paper is not paper. It is made from strips of the cut spirally from the pith of the rice paper tree, a small Asiatic tree or shrub, Tetrapanax papyriferum, that is widely cultivated in China and Japan. The pith is cut into a thin layer of ivory-like texture by means of a sharp knife. (American Paper and Pulp Association, 1965, 17). Parchment and vellum are also not paper. They are made from the skins of animals (Hunter 1943,6)

Where It Began.
Paper as we know it, was invented in China, AD 105, by the Chinese Eunuch Ts'ai Lun. It was, thin, feted, formed, flat made in porous molds from macerated vegetable fiber. (Hunter 1943,4) Before the 3rd century AD, the first paper was made of disintegrating cloth- bark of trees and vegetation such as mulberry, hemp, China grass (Hunter 1943,56)Paper was used in China from AD 868, for engraving religious pictures and reached its height of in 1634 with the wooden block prints made popular by Sung Ying-hsing.
The technology of making paper moved from China to Japan and then to Korea in AD 610 where it was commonly made from mulberry bark and Gampi. Later it was made from bamboo and rice straw. (Hunter 1943,59)
Marco Polo gave one of the first descriptions of Chinese papermaking in his 'Milione'. He mentions that the Chinese emperors jealously guard the secrets of papermaking and that fine paper is manufactured from vegetable fiber: rice or tea straw, bamboo canes and hemp rag cloth.
Chinese paper made from bark and the fibers of rags and hemp may have traveled on caravans following the Gobi Desert, the Desert of Takla Makan and the Tarim Valley and finally arrived in Samarkan. But papermaking was a closely guarded secret and it was not actually made there until after 751 AD. In 751 the Chinese lost a battle in Turkistan on the banks of the Tharaz River. It was recorded that among the Chinese prisoners were skilled papermakers. The craftsmen began making paper in Samarkan. (Hunter 1943,60)
Samarkan was a good place to make paper because it had an abundant supply of hemp and flax and puré water. (Hunter 1943,61)
It has been conjectured that the first paper mill was established in Baghdad (http://www.Al-bab.Com/arab/literature/lit.Htm)
Papermaking then spread to Damascus and to Egypt and Morocco. It took 500 years to find its way to Europe. (Hunter 1943, 115)By the end of the 10th century, paper had replaced parchment and papyrus in the Arab world. ( http://www.Al-bab.Com/arab/literature/lit.Htm)
The is a comparatively large number of early Arabic manuscripts. On paper dating from the 9th century. The material of the Arab paper was apparently substantially linen. It seems that the Arabs, and the skilled Persian workmen whom they employed, at once resorted to flax, which grows abundantly in Khorasan, as their principal material, afterwards also making use of rags, supplemented, as the demand grew, with any vegetable fibre that would serve; cotton, if used at all, was used very sparingly. Paper of Oriental manufacture in the Middle Ages can be distinguished by its stout substance and glossy surface, and was devoid of water-marks. (Stutermeister 1954, 11)Paper In Europe
The first mention of rag-paper occurs in the tract of Peter, abbot of Cluny (A.D. 1122 - 1150), adversus ludaeos, cap. 5. (http://www.Manufactura.Cz/paper.Htm)s
Several manuscripts survive that were written in European, countries on Oriental paper or paper made in the Oriental fashion. The oldest recorded document on paper was a deed of King Roger of Sicily, of the year 1102; and there are others of Sicilian kings in the 12th century. A notarial register on paper, at Geneva, dates, from 1154. The oldest known imperial deed on the same material is a chárter of Frederick II to the nuns of Goess in Styria, of the year 1228, now at Vienna. In 1231, Frederick II forbade further use of paper for public documents; which were in future to be inscribed on vellum. In Venice the Líber plegiorum, the entries in which begin with the year 1223, is made of rough paper; as are the registers of the Council of Ten, beginning in 1325; and the register of the emperor Henry VII. (1308--1313) preserved in Turin. In the British Museum there is an older example in a manuscript. (Arundel 268) which contains some astronomical treatises written on an excellent paper in an Italian hand from the first half of the 13th century. In the public Récord Office there is a letter on paper from Raymond, son of Raymond, Duke of Narbonne and count of Toulouse, to Henry III of England, written during the years 1216-1222. The letters addressed from Castile to Edward I., in1279 and following years (Pauli in Bericht, Berl. Akad., I854), are instances of Spanish made paper. (Stutermeister 1954, 11)
There is a récord of paper being used by the Empress Irene in Greece at the end of the 13th century, but with one doubtful exception, there are no extant Greek manuscripts on paper before the middle of the 13th century. http://www.Manufactura.Cz/paper.HtmPapermaking Comes To Europe
The Muslim conquest of Spain brought papermaking into Europe. The English word "ream" (meaning 500 sheets) is derived through Spanish and French from the Arabic word rizmah that translates as "a bundle". ( http://www.Al-bab.Com/arab/literature/lit.Htm)
Both Spain and Italy claim to be the first to manufacture paper in Europe. (Hunter 1943, 115) One of the first paper mills in Europe was in Xativa (now Jativa or St. Felipe de Javita in the ancient city of Valencia and it can be dated to AD 1151. (Hunter 1943, 153) Some scholars claim that the Arabs built the Xativa mill in approximately AD 1009. Papermaking continued under Moorish rule until 1244 when the moors were expelled. Paper making then began to gradually spread across Christian Europe. (http://www.Mead.Com/ml/docs/facts/history.Html)
The first wire mold for making paper is identified in Spain dating to 1150. Bamboo molds were common in China, but it was not readily available in Europe.
The bamboo allowed the mold to be flexible, but the European rigid wire mold, was better suited to the formation of rag fiber. Europeans also invented the Fence or Deckle, which keeps the paper within bonds (Hunter 1943, 115).
The earliest paper was called 'cloth parchment', but it often contained wood and straw in addition to cloth. All these raw materials were beaten to a fine pulp and mixed with water. Sheets of paper were then pressed out, dried and hardened.
(http://www.Dartfordarchive.Org.UK/technology/paper.Shtml)

The demand for paper was slight in the 1st Century Europe (Hunter 1943, 153) . Paper cost more than vellum, it was more fragile than parchment and it was associated with Jews and Arabs who were not trusted. (Hunter 1943, 61) In fact, The Church in Western Europe initially banned the use of paper calling it a 'pagan art' believing that animal parchment was the only thing 'holy' enough to carry the Sacred Word. (http://members.Aol.Com/Ppreble2/history2.Html)
It was only with the advent of printing in the middle of the 15th Century that the demand became greater. (Hunter 1943, 153)The first representation of the printing process is the 1568 wood print Der Papierer by Jost Amman in the Little Book of trades . (Hunter 1943, 5)

Common printer = injekt or láser printer.

So, what is papercraft?
Papercraft, or paper model, is a technique where you build objects in 3 dimensions using paper. We can say it's similar to Kirigame (in which the user only folds and cut small parts of paper to get the result) and origami (where the user only folds to get the final result).
There are many papercrafts available for free on the Internet about the most various themes, from simple animals to complex buildings or even articulated humanoid models.
Commercial models are available, sometimes, on magazines and on specialized sites but you can, without a doubt, have an infinity ammount of fun building only the free models available out there as there are some pretty awesome and complex models for free.

And what do you need to start on this hobby?
You'll need:

- printer
- scissor/x-acto knife
- glue
- cutting mat
- patience
- tweezers
- toothpick
- scoring (carving) tool

And the questions that everybody makes....How do I print? Which kind of paper do I use? And what about glue? What's a cutting mat? X-acto knife?

How to print?
Like you would print any other document, be it text or image document. Open the document, go to File -> Print (or ctrl+P for most of the programs), adjust the printer and have fun.
Sincé print quality is a factor here you will probably prefer the láser ones instead of the ink ones because ink normally has lower quality.

Which kind of paper to use?
There are lots and lots of different kinds of paper out there to choose from but one thing that you should know it about paper thickness.
Check the gramature (grams per meter square or gms) of the paper to decide whether you should use it or not.
The most common kind of paper is 75gsm. It's not thick enough for most of the projects you may find out there but it is still usable for simple projects (like cubic papercrafts). My Totoró test build was made on a 75gsm paper so you can have an idea how it turns out.
Normally I recommend people to use a 120gsm paper as it's not too thick for small pieces but it's thick enough for bigger pieces. My Totoró final build was made on a 120gsm paper.

The American measures of paper weights are nothing if not confusing. The weight (e.G. 80 pounds) of a paper refers to the weight of 500 sheets in the paper's basis size. The basis size varíes with the type of paper."
On that site you'll find further information but as you can see, it's confusing and Sincé I use gsm I know nothing about pounds. Though I have seen many people refering to 30lbs paper and 64lbs. I think 30lbs would be better Sincé it should be as thick as 120gsm.

What I recommend here is that you try different types of paper and find out the one suits better to your taste. You'll find out that some models work better with thicker paper than others and when you're more experienced you'll be able to decide the thickness of the paper that will give a better result to that specific model.

What kind of glue to use?
That common paper glue is fine. You know the ones you used on kindergarten? But stick with the liquid ones and not the stick ones. Liquid glue tend to be more efficient, it's easier to apply and will glue for longer time.

X-acto knife? Cutting mat? What?
X-acto knife (x-acto, exe-acto, exeacto, exacto, exact!) is a precisión knife that give you more mobility when cutting specially curved surfaces. It also gives a cleaner look on the board of the cutted surface than the scissor but if you work better with scissors than go on and use it.
Cutting mat (or self-healing cutting mat) is a surface made of a material that allows you to cut things on it. The advantage of having one is that you won't leave cut marks on the furniture you may be cutting on (probably your table), it won't (or shouldn't) dull your blade as much as other surfaces and the mat surface stay smooth and clean even after you've used it many many times (hence called self-healing).

Tweezers? Toothpick? For what are those?
I normally use a toothpick to apply glue on the tabs and surfaces. I heard there are glue guns or something like that that is made specifically for applying glue and I heard it's better than using a toothpick. I never used one so I can't compare and won't say anymore about it. Feel free to search about it and use it if you feel like.
Toothpicks may also help you to apply pressure on tabs that are out of your finger range, be it because the tab is inside the model and the only opening is too small for your fingers or whatever other situation you may find.
Tweezers are useful on the same manner as the toothpick as you can apply pressure on tabs out of the range of your fingers but it's also useful to work with smaller pieces in general.

What kind of model can you build?
Basically anything. Within reasons, obviously.
You can find from simple cubic crafts:

to more advanced models:


The sky is the limit.

Looks pretty awesome but where can I find some models?
The Internet is packed with free models waiting to be built.

Are you a novice and want to simply give it a try?
Check out Cubeecraft.Com There you'll find a collection of cubic crafts that can be built even without glue. Pretty cool!

You feel more adventurous and want to give a try on something more complex?
Check out the papercraft section from Canon Creative Pack. They have a big collection of simply awesome free models. But be warned that their models are quite big.

Do you want one place where you'll find a huge collection of many papercrafts scattered around the Internet?
Than check out the Papercraft Museum. There you'll find lots and lots of models to download from the most various themes and difficulty.

And here are some of the models I have already built:



So you have found that awesome car/building/character paper model and you want to build it NOW!
Now, don't haste, ,don't haste.
Make a few considerations first:
- Are you a newcomer?
If so, try to build an easy model first so you can get hold of the whole process and get used to it. See if it works better with scissors or a x-acto knife. You don't want that awesome model you found to turn out crappy because you couldn't cut it right, right? There are lots of pretty easy yet awesome models out there.
- Do you have a work place?
Don't try to build it while laid on the bed. Decide where your work place will be and organize it. Clean up the place, get two or more boxes or a plastic bags to use one as trash and the others as a place to keep the already cut pieces (you don't want to reprint a whole page because you lost one piece right?). Lit up the place and be sure you have enough free space to rotate the paper freely.
- Do you understand the templates?
Before start cutting like mad, see the template and try to understand it. Visualize where each tab should go, try to imagine how that piece should look like in the outcome. Study the template before you cut. After you cut, study the pieces again because now you can mové the pieces to have a better visualization.

source :

http://users.Stlcc.Edu/nfuller/paper/

http://shadowmoon87.Blogspot.Com/2009/03/introduction-to-papercraft.Html

http://shadowmoon87.Blogspot.Com/2009/03/introduction-to-papercraft-part-2.Html