What is Vellum

There are two types of vellum- one is a type of mammal skin specially prepared for writing or printing on. The skin has undergone specialist treatments, having been cleaned, bleached, stretched on a frame and scraped with a hemispherical knife. Scraping has been alternated with wetting and drying to create tension. After treating the vellum by abrading the surface with pumice and preparing it with lime or chalk it will accept writing or printing ink.

In the past, many of the finer medieval manuscripts were written on mammal skin vellum. In art vellum was used for painting on, especially if the painting needed to be sent long distances.

The other type of vellum, the more modern type, is a slick, translucent paper (vegetable vellum) which is used for a variety of purposes, especially for plans, tracings, drawings and blueprints. It is made from plasticized cotton. Like the natural vellum, this synthetic vellum is more dimensionally stable than a linen or paper sheet. It is produced very thinly so as to be virtually transparent to strong light.

Vellum Printing

Bearing in mind that vellum is a very delicate paper, the settings on your printer will need to be adjusted in order to get the best print quality possible. Vellum is not porous. This means the paper will not quickly absorb the ink and so you have to be careful about regulating how much ink your printer lays down on the paper. Select the “light” setting for ink output and this will help you avoid smearing. It will also aid quicker drying.

Use the less shiny side of the vellum if you can see it. (This is not as easy as it seems. but the more experienced eyes should be able to spot it). Set your printer to the transparency setting. Thinner fonts are also recommended for obvious reasons.

Beware of handling the vellum too soon after printing.  It needs longer to dry than normal copy paper. A clear embossing powder can be shaken over it at the drying stage, or, failing that, use a hairdryer or heat gun on a low setting so the vellum will not curl up.

What is Vellum?

copyright Delilah  Black

What is Vellum  inc

2011