Bank-notes, loans and banks demand the use of the strongest rags, such as linen, duck, and sail-cloth. The fibres are drawn out rather than cut up, the resulting paper being hard and resistant to wear. Bank-notes are cream wove; banks, cream wove or blue wove; loans are cream wove. Being hand-made the sizing, drying, and finishing are carried out as described in Chapter V.
Ledger or account book papers may be hand- or machine-made, and are usually azure or blue laid. If machine-made, the characteristics of the hand-made papers are as far as possible retained: strength, hard tub-sized surface, opacity, moderate finish, both sides alike in surface. To attain these qualities the same materials are employed, an all-rag furnish with a fair proportion of strong linen, prolonged beating to draw out the fibres, a shake to ensure good felting, slow drying to allow gradual contraction, tub-sizing, air-drying over skeleton drums will attain the desired end. The finish of ledger or account book papers is not quite so high as that for loan papers, but it must be equal for both sides of the sheet, in order that writing may be done easily on all pages of the books. The sizing must be thorough, or the ink will sink through the paper, and if erasures are made, the abraded surface will not take ink without spreading.
Machine-made bond or loan papers are not always all-rag papers, and are not essentially tub-sized, but the best of the class will be all-rag, tub-sized papers. One paper mill carries an enormous stock of high class engine-sized bond and bank papers in eighteen colours, and each of these in six substances. Bank papers are thinner than bonds, the usual substances being foolscap 7 lb., large post 11 lb., medium 13 lb. Here again the best papers are all-rag, tub-sized,
