Sizing or size is a substance that is applied to porous materials as a glaze or filler. It is used to change surface properties in papermaking, gilding, and the manufacture of textiles. Chinese court official Cai Lun achieved a break-through improvement in papermaking process. ... A gilded Tibetan Vajrasattva Gilding is the art of applying metal leaf (most commonly gold or silver leaf) to a surface. ... This article is about the type of fabric. ...

Papermaking

Sizing is used on fibers during paper manufacture in order to curb their tendency to absorb liquids by capillary action. By doing so, sizing keeps the ink on the surface of the paper where it was intended to remain. In addition, sizing affects abrasiveness, creasibility, finish, printability, smoothness, and surface bond strength, and decreases surface porosity and fuzzing. Fiber or fibre[1] is a class of materials that are continuous filaments or are in discrete elongated pieces, similar to lengths of thread. ... A blank sheet of paper Paper is a commodity of thin material produced by the amalgamation of fibers, typically vegetable fibers composed of cellulose, which are subsequently held together by hydrogen bonding. ... A liquid will usually assume the shape of its container A liquid is one of the main states of matter. ... Capillary action, capillarity, or capillary motion is the ability of a substance (the standard reference is to a tube in plants but can be seen readily with porous paper) to draw a substance up against gravity. ... An ink is a liquid containing various pigments and/or dyes used for coloring a surface to render an image or text. ... Porosity is a measure of the void spaces in a material, and is measured as a fraction, between 0–1, or as a percent between 0–100%. The term porosity is used in multiple fields including manufacturing, earth sciences and construction. ... Fuzz testing or fuzzing is a software testing technique. ...

There are two major types of sizing: engine (rosin) and surface (tub). Rosin sizing is applied to almost all papers and especially to all those that are machine made, while tub sizing is added for the highest grade bond, ledger, and writing papers. Tub sizing consists of gelatin glue and / or starch and is generally only used for handmade papers. Rosin is an amphipathic molecule, having both hydrophilic (water-loving) and hydrophobic (water-repelling) ends. The rosin coats the paper fiber and forms a film, with the hydrophilic tail facing the fiber and the hydrophobic tail facing outwards. This creates a water-repellent situation, which causes the water-based ink to remain outside on the paper surface. A 20 g cake of amber violin bow rosin. ... Bond Paper Bond paper is a high quality durable writing paper similar to bank paper but having a weight greater than 50g/m2. ... A ledger (from the English dialect forms liggen or leggen, to lie or lay; in sense adapted from the Dutch substantive logger), is the principal book for recording transactions. ... Illustration of a scribe writing Writing, in its most common sense, is the preservation and the preserved text on a medium, with the use of signs or symbols. ... Gelatin (also gelatine, from French gélatine) is a translucent brittle solid substance, colorless or slightly yellow, nearly tasteless and odorless. ... Look up glue in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Starch (CAS# 9005-25-8) is a complex carbohydrate which is soluble in water; it is used by plants as a way to store excess glucose. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Amphiphiles. ... In science, a molecule is a group of atoms in a definite arrangement held together by chemical bonds. ... The adjective hydrophilic describes something that likes water (from Greek hydros = water; philos = friend). ... In chemistry, hydrophobic or lipophilic species, or hydrophobes, tend to be electrically neutral and nonpolar, and thus prefer other neutral and nonpolar solvents or molecular environments. ... Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. ... A scorpion tail A tail is the section at the rear end of an animals body, the term particularly referring to such a section which forms a distinct, flexible appendage to the torso. ...

There are three categories of papers with respect to sizing: unsized (water-leaf), weak sized (slack sized), and strong sized (hard sized). Waterleaf has low water resistance and includes absorbent papers for blotting. Slack sized paper is somewhat absorbent and includes newsprint, while hard sized papers have the highest water resistance. Look up blotting paper in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Blotting paper is a type of paper or other material which is used to absorb an excess of substance (such as ink or oil) from the surface of an object. ... Newsprint is low-cost, low-quality, non-archival paper. ...

Gilding

Sizing is applied to surfaces before gilding in order to remove small surface imperfections that would otherwise be highlighted by the very thin metal used. A gilded Tibetan Vajrasattva Gilding is the art of applying metal leaf (most commonly gold or silver leaf) to a surface. ...

Textile production

Sizing, sometimes in a spray-form, can be used like starch to add body and shape to clothing. Starch (CAS# 9005-25-8) is a complex carbohydrate which is soluble in water; it is used by plants as a way to store excess glucose. ...