Paper weight tester
A physical rig that tells you whether a stock will curl before you commit.
A rig made from a protractor, a clamp and a phone camera that measures how far a sheet droops when you hold it by one edge. It tells you more about a stock than the number on the swatch.
Grammage is mass, not stiffness. Two 170gsm sheets can behave completely differently depending on fibre and finish, and "behaves differently" is what a client actually notices when they pick up a brochure. The droop angle is a stand-in for stiffness that anyone can measure in ten seconds.
The droop angle is a stand-in for stiffness that anyone can measure in ten seconds.
We tested every stock in the studio drawer and wrote the angle on the back of each swatch. The ranking bore almost no relation to the weight printed on the label, which was satisfying and slightly alarming.
It now settles the annual argument about cover stock in about a minute. The rig cost nothing and lives in a drawer under the guillotine.