Yasmine Kerber asks about paper making processes [140707 MMDigest].
I have always been fascinated with the story of the Fourdrinier machine
process; in fact, this is what got me interested in mechanical music.
While working on the laser printers at Apple we went though tons of
paper testing the printers.

I thought it would be nice to have a 'home paper' recycling machine,
where the paper is shredded pulped and screened and calenderd to make
new sheets.  There was a papermaker at the Renaissance Faire.  It is
a nasty, smelly process.  I realized that the local paper mill no
longer stinks.  I suspect the regulations got too tough and it probably
no longer exists.

Matt Caulfield did a whole chemical study on the dry waxed papers used
by Wurlitzer in the 1920s.  My understanding was the paper was made for
other purposes and found suitable for the points given.  In the 1950s
meat packing papers were used.  I am told the modern papers similar to
these are used for chart recording.

The best papers were made of linen rag.  These have a low acid content.
Linen is no longer popular in industry as the flax fibers are abrasive
and cut through the machines.  The fibers also have to be processed wet.
The English expression, "get your hackles up," describes the feel of
unprocessed flax.  What linen papers are made today are used for high
security banknotes.  I have books printed on linen that are hundreds of
years old with little degradation.

Hemp is another fiber which has fallen out of modern use.  Papers made
from this fiber have a sort of soft silky feel, and the papers are
brownish in color even when new.  Rag paper is still made from cotton,
but cotton seems to have short life span compared to the other plant
fibers.  Cotton clothing more than about 30 years old is light
sensitive and has to be kept in dark dry conditions.

I have no experience with wood pulp fibers as such do not interest me.
I do have several books on book and painting conservation; some of them
go into the composition of the support materials.  Many great works of
'modern' art are on paper.

I do know that the fillers used in papers are called clays.  That is
the limit of my knowledge on the subject.

The place to start studying the automated process (at least in the
English ancestry) is with the firm of Brian Donken and Son.  This
company was high tech and responsible for most of the industrial
revolution.  They made the boilers for Watt, made the calender
rolls for Fourdrinier, and the gears for Babbage's difference engine
(Shuetz copy).

Babbage may be who you are looking for.  In the 1840s and 1850s he
traveled throughout Europe documenting industrial processes.  His book,
"On the Economy of Manufacture," is a model for the modern factory
(and a recipe for repetitive stress injury!).  Babbage and Brunell
used great webs of paper to chart the performance of steam engines.
His work with data cards lead directly to the tabulating machines of
a decade later.

For my own EET (Electronics Engineering Technician) course leading
to a two-year trade college certificate,  I wrote a paper (now lost)
on the high speed punches used for CNC automation.  Paper was used,
up through the 1990s, for process control due to the resistance to
magnetism, oils, and dust.  The great automated assembly machines in
your study time period were driven by cams and punched tape.  The loom
is the best example.  The machines used to make the battleships, and
other not so nice things also used these industrial processes.   It is
possible these machines and processes were scrapped as part of the war
reparations (both incidents) or destroyed in the conflict.

These paper types were also used in high security applications, which
may be why it is hard to find information on these processes.  One
roll Robbie had images of were copies of Czech telegrams.  The British
machines used to crack German codes were based on punched paper tape.
This use is, of course, pure speculation.  My feeling is that these
papers were mostly used for telegraphy.  Doran Swade, then curator at
the London Science Museum, told me the telegraphy machines were the
most ignored of the collection.  My guess is the telegraph companies
drove the research into the properties you are interested in and the
mechanical music use was an afterthought.

What sort of paper did the Autotypist use?

Julie Porter - aka "the professor"

 [ In the years before I punched piano roll music, I punched lots of
 [ 5-level and 8-level paper tape that controlled military teleprinters
 [ and computers.  The punched tape was destroyed after use, and so
 [ its main feature was low cost -- it was basically newsprint paper,
 [ like the paper used to make low-cost piano rolls of popular music.
 [ -- Robbie