How do you make carbonless copy paper?

Carbonless copy paper can be made in two ways. One way involves making copy paper from recycled printer waste. In contrast, the other way involves mixing an ordinary sheet of copy paper with a special chemical that turns it into carbonless copy paper after it’s printed. Read on to learn more about how to make carbonless copy paper and why you might want to make it!

Gather materials

To make your own NCR paper, you will need white printer paper, a colored marker, a wood block, and a ruler. First, get two pieces of white printer paper and a sheet of NCR (no carbon required) from your local office supply store. Using a colored marker, divide one piece of printer paper into thirds vertically and horizontally. Use a ruler to draw grid lines if you want more precise measurements.

Then place that piece down with its grid side up over your second piece of blank printer paper so that one-third is covering that second piece and two-thirds are hanging off either side. Next, use a wood block to cut through both sheets of blank paper along each line in an arc-like fashion.

Mix ingredients together

As it turns out, making carbonless copy paper is not much different than mixing a cake. Essentially, all that’s needed are three main ingredients: pulp, clay, and limestone. The pulp comes from wood products, such as trees; clay is mined from deposits in places like Nevada, and limestone is pulled from mines and quarries.

All three ingredients are mixed at a slurry consistency in water—before being baked into sheets of wet-strength paper that are put through drying racks and then ovens to form them into their final state. Once formed into dry sheets, they’re cut with specially designed guillotines to create individual sheets of NCR paper.

Pour into pan

Carbonless copy paper is often known as NCR (no carbon required) or bookkeeping copy paper. NCR paper forms a sheet of perforated pages that can be torn off individually from a pad or bound into a book. To create these sheets, mix gelatin and colophony (aka rosin) in hot water, pour over a base layer of regular printing/copying paper, then sandwich in an additional sheet of high-quality copying/printing paper.

Depending on your recipe, everything might go into one container at once to be poured together; some recipes use multiple batches to vary the strength of adhesion. When done right, each page will feel like it has a thin plastic covering—because it does!

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit

The first step in making carbonless copy paper is baking sheets of pulped bleached kraft fibers for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. This creates a dry sheet of polyvinyl alcohol, which does not let ink pass through. Once dried, water is added to dissolve away some of it.

The remaining polyvinyl alcohol then becomes a substance called hydroxypropyl cellulose that allows printing onto one side and not directly onto another sheet underneath. As a result, clean copies can be easily made when copying onto standard bond paper or writing on both sides of one piece of note-sized paper.

Cool down

To make carbonless copy paper, also known as NCR paper, it’s necessary to create sheets with a waxy surface. This keeps writing from smearing when making multiple copies of documents. There are several methods for doing so. One way is coating pages with a liquid polymer that solidifies after cooling; another is laying sheets flat and exposing them to vapors.

Cut sheets apart

Many manufacturers of carbonless copy paper also sell pre-cut sheets. This is advantageous because cutting sheets apart by hand can be a hassle. If you’re in a rush, consider purchasing pre-cut pages instead of taking the time to cut them apart yourself. Don’t worry—cutting them won’t ruin them! As long as they are cut evenly, they will still work just fine.

Because it requires scissors or a utility knife to separate each sheet, users must buy high-quality tools to ensure clean cuts without puncturing any of their papers. Carbonless copies made from particularly thick papers may need help keeping their shape and should be folded with care when cutting them apart using blades designed for delicate materials like cardstock.

Use your printer!

A family member must go through various personal belongings when someone passes away and decide what to keep, sell or give away. While going through her deceased father’s things, a woman came across four boxes of office supplies that she had no idea what to do with.

She initially thought about throwing them out but then remembered that he did work for a business-focused organization before his retirement. The woman decided to ask one of her friends if they could use any of his belongings. Her friend was thrilled when she found out there were four boxes of unused carbonless copy paper.

Conclusion

Carbonless copy paper is made by a process called carbonization. To create a sheet of toner (which is what printers use), raw materials such as cotton and wood are heated to over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit and then treated with caustic soda. The wood fibers are broken down to release cellulose and formaldehyde, which mix in with cotton fibers. This combination is turned into a paste pressed onto a mesh frame and allowed to cool. Once cooled, it can be cut into sheets or fed through rollers and cut into sheets ready for use by printers.