The Origami Forum

I have used tissue paper treated with metyl cellulose a lot lately. But sometimes I need thicker and sturdier paper. I want to make myself some double layered tissue paper with MC. But I don't know how.

I have searched the forum for more info, but nowhere I could find instructions on how to do it. I know that Anna uses it.

Can anyone help?

The way I do it (Anna uses the paper I make) I put both layers of tissue paper together on a glass surface. Then I apply the MC on the top layer. The MC has to be liquid enough and you have to use enough of it, so that it soaks through both layers of tissue binding them together.

If you want to make double tissue paper with different colours on both sides you will have to find a brand of tissue paper that doesn't bleed (i.e. the colour doesn't get washed out when in contact with water). If the paper does bleed the colours will mix and you won't get the desired result.

The only tissue paper I found to be none-bleeding is an Austrian brand called "Apollo" but the only supplier I know is the Austrian company Putrich and I don't know if they ship worldwide.

For double tissue paper with only one colour I found that the bleeding kind of tissue paper is easier to work with, resulting in less wrinkles in the final sheet.

Thanks, Gerwin!
I will try that.

Double tissue paper must be THE medium to fold insects .

I tried and I failed miserably!

The fist time I tried, the solution would not soak through the top sheet to the bottom sheet.

The second time I added more water, but this time one sheet would not stick to the other!

I've been wondering if it is possible to use double tissue foil to make larger sheets of paper, joining four sheets, extending the size of the final sheet. I want to double the size of a sheet with 40 cm of width to get a sheet of 80 cm of width. Has anyone successfully done that?

You can always tape pieces together...

And for the MC-ing the tissue paper together, here's what I did:

I normally use about one heaping teaspoon of powder for 100 mL water. This is because I'm usually using the MC-folding/dry-wet folding a la Robert Lang, Jason Ku, Satoshi Kamiya, Ben Muller, etc. (I was introduced to it by Ben Muller years ago.)

Anyhow, that was way too strong for the tissue paper stuff. So now that I had a half container full of MC solution, I filled the rest up with warm-hot water and shook it up well, and immediately used it on a second attempt. This time instead of trying to do the two layers at once I laid down the first layer, MC-d it. Then I laid the second layer on top of it, and used a little bit more of the solution to get the paper to stay down and get rid of all the air bubbles. Under an hour later the paper was dry and ready. I haven't tried folding with it yet, but it feels promising.

I use 1 teaspoon for 50ml of water. let the mixture brew a bit that it becomes gluey. too wet glue didn't do the job for me.
I tape the first paper onto a wooden board and paste the glue with a brush onto it. then I roll the second tussue paper over it and again put glue onto it.
don't touch the paper until it's completely dried. when dried, you can detach the paper from the board. if you detach the paper to early, it may rip but definately will become wavey.

Most of the times I apply MC on paper, the sheets expand and when it dries off it shrinks to its original size, ripping up at some areas. What do you guys do in order to avoid that?

One solution have I found is to detach the sheet as soon as possible, before it is completely dry, lift it up and lie it down again on the board, so that it is not completely adhered to the board (there must be some air trapped at some areas). This way the paper has some room to shrink down and not rip. The only problem of this method is that when it gets dry, it is not completely smooth, it gets kind of wrinkled.

I use a verneered woodboard with a really smooth surface. I just put the paper onto it and paste the glue onto it. because of the water (not the glue), the paper is fixed onto the plane surface.

I am not experienced with paper making/MC coating, but I do know some science behind it:
The paper fibers expand when they get wet, so the paper will inevitably change shape when you apply the MC. If the paper is machine made, it has a grain and will expand more along that grain than the other direction (it will expand one way more than the other and become slightly oblong). So if you bond 2 papers together with MC, if the grain is going different ways, I would imagine that this could cause the paper to tear. I read a really good article about paper on Lang's site: http://www.langorigami.com/info/paper/paper.php4

Well, it's not like the tissue paper is a nice square to begin with. I put the two layers together, and get out as many of the wrinkles and bubbles as I can. Then, when dry, I cut out a square as large as I need from the nicest section of the paper.

The concept is still the same- the paper will warp when it gets wet and it will distort, especially if it has a grain.

I've been wondering if it is possible to use double tissue foil to make larger sheets of paper, joining four sheets, extending the size of the final sheet. I want to double the size of a sheet with 40 cm of width to get a sheet of 80 cm of width. Has anyone successfully done that?

I have done this for my ancient dragon. What I did was to put a tiny bit of spray adhesive/ watered down glue on the edges of the bare tissue paper. Then I combined the 4 tissue squares. Then you can proceed as usual with the foil. I hope it works out (and just forewarning you - it seems that having very large tissue foil makes it much harder to work with).