On Sun 10 Jul 2016 at 21:20:39 (-0400), rhkra...@gmail.com wrote: > On Sunday, July 10, 2016 08:33:37 PM David Wright wrote: > > BTW I do find American paper weights about as obfuscated as anything. > > I think you need to serve an apprenticeship in printing to have a clue. > > There'a website http://okpaper.com/calculators/lbs-to-gsm that claims > > to do the conversion. Type in 20 lbs and it spits out > > GSM text 29.6 > > GSM cover 54.16 > > They're not seriously telling me that the standard US paper weight > > (20lbs) comes out at those gsm values. 80gsm is standard, and if you > > buy 70gsm at cheap stores, there's a fair chance it'll misfeed in the > > printer. 60gsm comes in writing tablets and would be hopeless in any > > machine. (I haven't a clue what "text" and "cover" mean.) > > Of course, the fundamental problem with the American system is 20 lbs > > of what? Yes, paper; but how much? > > From a quick google search: > > <quote> > What does 20 lb paper mean? | Yahoo Answers > https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid... > Jun 4, 2008 - Best Answer: "Paper weight refers to the weight of a 500-sheet > ream of 17" x 22" paper. Each of these sheets is equivalent to four letter > size ... > </quote>
Well, that figures. Putting 50lbs into okpaper produces 74gsm which feels about right, and hand-cranking the numbers using 20lbs of 17" x 22" produces 75.2gsm. So you have to guess what size of sheet to weigh according to what you think the type of paper might be. And of course everybody knows that "20 lb. bond" is at other times referred to as a "50 lb. text weight", whatever that might be. Pure insanity, with not much enlightenmnt from http://paperworks.com/about-paper-weights and a spoonful of confusion from http://www.paper-paper.com/weight.html which introduces yet another unit called "point", and states "The Values in the table [...] should not be used as specifications because there are variances within the same basis weight due to other characteristics of the papers. Similar weight papers may vary between different paper manufacturers." Have you heard the one about measuring lightbulb bases with two dimes (10¢) and two cans of Campbell's condensed tomato soup? Oh, and a penny (presumably the 1¢ kind). Seriously: https://www.harringtonlights.com/Reference/identifying_screw_bases.htm Cheers, David.
