As I'm a neophyte to fountain/dip pens and its associated accoutrements, I need a crash course in paper. I'm completely at a loss when paper size such as A4 & A5 as well as other letter/number combinations are being discussed. I'm also befuddled with paper weight. I can figure out woven vs. non-woven as I'm also a fiber spinner and weaver and have done craft projects where I've made my own paper. When I make my own paper, I add a product called paper clay. Is that a common component of writing paper? I know what a no. 10 size envelope is but that's where my knowledge ends. Please help me gain some finesse with this art so I can avoid tacky paper faux pas!

Well, since you're in the US, the standard paper size is "letter," at 8.5 x 11 inches. A4 is the European equivalent (rest of the world, really). A5 is half that, A3 is double and so on. A0 is a sheet of paper with an area of one square meter and the long side being longer by a factor equal to the square root of 2. What that amounts to is that the A series keeps its proportions when you fold it in half and cut it.

Paper weight is done in "reams" of 500 sheets in the US. That means a 24lb paper weights 24lb for 500 sheets. Elsewhere, it is done in grams per square meter (gsm).

I don't know much about paper clay, but that may have to do with the sizing in the paper.

I made a chart of paper sizes, in inches & mm, which I have attached. Weight has already been explained, but I do not have the information to convert gsm to lb weight. That would be a nice project. The paper size chart merely involved cutting and pasting the values into an Excel spreadsheet and formatting it. Hope this is helpful

Click to view attachment

I spoke too soon. While not exhaustive, the attached chart is a gsm to poundage chart, which I cut and pasted into Excel then pdf'd.

Donnie

Click to view attachment

You might think of paper weight the way you do the yarn or threads you use in weaving, silk thread vs. cotton vs. linen for example to begin to gauge weights.

Another comparison that might be familiar to you, as an artist, is drawing and watercolour papers. The average weight for watercolour paper is 140lb/300 gsm, while a drawing paper easily can be half that weight.

Photocopy papers are generally around 24/28lbs.

I believe I saw weights in a recent thread for Rhodia and perhaps Clairfontaine.

I have used a fountain pen on very little weight paper (newsprint) and heavy weight paper like watercolour paper with success--depending on the combination of paper, pen and ink.

WHOT???????

LOL, not quite.

Here's a conversion chart:
Conversion chart

It was actually relatively accurate except for the dropped two and zero. 10 reams of 20 lb paper weighs 40 pounds. So 5 reams, weigh 20 lbs. At least that is what they measure on a scale. 24 lb, 28 lb and 32 lb are proportionately heavier.

The conversion chart is helpful, but it is more of a conversion calculator than a chart. Rule of thumb is that in pound weight paper, 5 reams of it will weigh the pound id.

Donnie

The image on wikipedia is pretty good.

Well, yes and no. 24 lb paper DOES mean 500 sheets weigh 24 lbs, BUT not the 500 sheets you use. All these weights, which are called "basis weights," are based on a larger "basis sheet." For "bond" (copy paper, notepad paper, etc) the basis sheet is 17" x 22" which cuts to 4 sheets of US letter. 500 sheets of basis sheet will weigh 24 lbs, but that's 2000 sheets of letter (should be 4 reams = basis weight). Only for "bond," to convert to grammage (gsm) multiply the basis weight times 3.76.

Different kinds of paper (text, cover, index, newsprint) have different size basis sheets and hence different conversion factors to grammage. Try Googling "basis weight" or "basis sheet" for more info. If you can determine the correct basis sheet size, then you can compute the area of 500 basis sheets; that and the given weight are then easily converted to grammage.

Edit: Good link on grammage, basis weight, basis size:
http://home.inter.net/eds/paper/grammage.html

Thank you most kindly all of you who took the time and effort to answer my questions. I appreciate your patience with my elementary questions.