First and foremost, I'm terribly sorry if this should be in one of the sticky threads. That being said, here is my question. Do you World Works guys use just plain 110lb Cardstock, or something else? I ask because in your videos, which are great by the way, the paper is oh so much more shiny than my GP 110lb Cardstock. Now this could be a hallucination of my own machinations, however to me it looks more akin to some sort of photo paper. Am I wrong? Answers would greatly alleviate my concerns.

Welcome to the boards, Bowtrik.

The answer is yes, that's plain old, ordinary, everyday cardstock. The only thing I could think of that explains what you're seeing is a different finish or a different brand of stock. In terms of weight, 110lbs is the standard (although we do occaisionally recommend 80lbs COVERstock for a sturdier build, with the caveat that alot of cheaper printers can't handle it very well).

Thank you for the welcome, really glad to be here. The products you guys design were just too cool for me to pass up.

Your answer, however, surprises me a bit. Maybe it is just the lighting, it is most likely much brighter than what I had been comparing my printed sheets to. Which seems rightly so, proper lighting no doubt helps meters or miles, depending on the skill of the modeler I'm sure.

One more quick question though, if I may. 80lb is thicker (stronger) than 110lb? I thought the lower the LB, the thinner the paper? Or is there some other reason it is more sturdy?

Some brands of cardstock have a shinier finish than others (although not necesarily glossy, which would be an entirely different type of stock) but it's of no real consequence in terms of either strength or colour. Generally speaking, it's all good.

As for the weights, yes it's counter-intuitive but the lighter the weight the thicker the paper. Standard bond paper is 225lbs if I recall correctly. I try not to think about it.

Thank you again for the quick, and most importantly, useful answers. I dabbled in some paper-craft modeling some years ago and had picked up a bunch of 110lb card-stock. And glad I hadn't simply recycled it yet. Seems like the stuff to use. Now I just need to get me some of that fancy foam-core stuff. Never used that for anything more than a science project when I was a wee one.

Foamcore is a love/hate subject. Most people love it for the stability but hate the way it uses up blades. I know I do.

Paper weights are different depending on the type of paper. 100lb cardstock is lighter than 110lb cardstock... but 80lb coverstock seems to be slightly heavier.

Poundage is irrelevant. Grammage matters. On the packaging for most reams, you should see something like the following: 110lb (216gsm). The "gsm" bit means "grams per square meter", and that's the grammage of the stock.

Looking at my paper shelf, here are the weights, from thinnest to thickest:

Hammermill Color Copy Digital 28lb: 28lb, 120gsm

Hammermill Color Copy Digital Cover 60lb: 60lb, 163gsm

Wausau Exact Index 90lb: 90lb, 165gsm

Canon Matte Photo Paper MP-101: 47lb, 175gsm

Red River Premium Matte Photo C2S--50lb, 185gsm

Wausau Exact Index 110lb: 110lb, 199gsm

Georgia Pacific 110lb Cardstock: 110lb, 200gsm

Hammermill Color Copy Digital Cover 80lb: 80lb, 216gsm

Hammermill Color Copy Digital Cover 100lb: 100lb, 272gsm

As you can see, the poundage is all over the map, while the grammage is more or less linear. Anything between 185 to 225 gsm is ideal for most general building. Lighter weights from 160 to 175gsm are ideal for smaller items, but aren't strong enough for large builds unless you reinforce them. Anything lighter than that (120gsm or lower) is generally not suitable for building, but they have their uses. When you go higher than 225gsm, you may find it much harder to get clean folds, tolerances start becoming a serious issue, and you may experience difficulty feeding the stock into a consumer-grade printer. The sweet spot is between 185 and 225gsm.

Now, another thing you need to keep an eye out for is the thickness of the stock. The caliper thickness of any given stock is usually given in units of 1/1000 of an inch, called "mils". A sheet of paper 8.5 mils thick is 0.0085 inches thick. The average thickness of 185-225gsm stock is somewhere between 8 to 10 mils, and index cards are usually around 7 mils thick. So, the ideal general-purpose cardstock should be 185 to 225gsm and between 8.5 to 10 mils thick.

-Mel

Here is a chart that might help you understand the difference in weights for stuff called bond, index, cover, etc. There is even a column for the thickness of the stock as measured by a caliper. A digital caliper is handy to have.

The 65 lb. card referenced most is 65 lb Cover, approx. 177 gsm.
The 110 lb. card referenced most is 110 lb index, approx. 199 gsm.
The 80 lb Cover stock is 218 gsm.



The numbers on that chart might not be exactly what you will see on the packaging or see referenced in some posts, but the relative thicknesses are the same. That is why I use a caliper to measure the thickness of the card. So far the 110 lb GP cardstock (Index) and the 65 lb Wausau cardstock (Cover) I use for my model builds measure out like that chart says.