After a bit of googling, I’ve decided finding what I’m looking for might be a bit difficult. The local art stores don’t have paper big enough.
Does anybody know where I can get oversized, thick, smooth white paper in say, 80’ long by 6’wide, or close? I had rolls of it a few years ago, but they came from some linoleum as a protective layer for shipping. I never actually discovered a place to buy paper that large.
I’d like to buy online, I don’t have a car. Getting that paper home would be a tough walk.
Hmmmmm, my first thought when reading your title was to tell you to ask your local newspaper if you could buy a roll now and then. But on reading your last reply, I’m guessing that newsprint would NOT be satisfactory for you?
For retail purchase, h.sapiens gave you good advice. Photo background paper is certainly wide enough (but maybe not 80 continuous feet long). It comes in a rainbow of colors. I know that a company called Savage is one manufacturer.
bidee’s suggestion is good too. Web printing presses use giant – and I mean giant – rolls of paper (a roll is called a “web”). Web presses are used to print large print runs like newspapers and some magazines.
They do not stop the presses between webs; they glue the end of the expired roll to the front of the new one using a mechanism called a “flying paster.” As you might imagine, this is not exactly microsurgery – it is a speedy and wasteful process that results in lots of almost-but-not-quite empty rolls of paper that the printer considers waste product.
These “web cores,” as they are called in the trade, are what you want. They usually contain many, many feet of perfectly good paper that is, oh, about 5 or 6 feet wide. You can probably have as many as you can carry from a friendly printing plant. The trick, of course, is finding a place that won’t tell you to stop wasting their valuable time with your stupid girly craft projects. Printers tend to be no-nonsense tough guys.
thanks for all the suggestions, I suppose going to a printer would indeed be my best option, though I would like to get it online and have UPS/Fedex ship it to me. I’m not sure where a printer is around here, but I’ll find it.
And no, Lynn Bodoni, newsprint would not work. I need strong paper that can stand hard erasing and lots of wet coats.
Check your area for a large printer that uses web presses, they should have some roll ends and they will deliver too, maybe.
Also look for a paper merchant, possibly they will have some damaged rolls in the warehouse. Forty eight inches wide is probably going to be hard to find tho.
Ha, my idea is better than all the previous ones. My dad used to bring this stuff home all the time from the cardboard box factory. Rolls (actually roll ends) were 5-6 feet tall - at least that’s the size he could fit in the car; they may use larger ones. I never measured how long they were but it was a lot; those rolls would make a big racket and bust things if they fell over.
The paper is pretty much exactly as you describe; smooth, thick, white on one side and brown on the other (get the kind they use for white cardboard). It’s easier to cut with a knife than scissors, and is too thick to make paper airplanes out of. We used to slice off a sheet and trace our whole body outlines. And yes we used to draw on it and I still have some pictures I made as a kid from 20 some years ago.
It is of course used to make corrugated cardboard right at the box plant. It comes in gigantic rolls like 8 feet wide that require a special fork lift to pick up; so don’t even think about buying a whole roll (it’ll proboably outweigh your car). They have roll ends about 12" in diameter all the time, and if you know the right people they are free.
Now I happen to live where there is a box factory, and my dad worked there for 30+ years, so this stuff is easier for me to get… but do check around for cardboard manufacturers in your area. Macmillan Bathurst (formerly Macmillan Bloedel) is where my dad worked. And be careful as this stuff gives the nastiest paper cuts I’ve ever encountered being so stiff and thick.
