Looking at the posts about brittle roll paper in MMD over the last
28 years [*], all ask if it's possible to make it less brittle.
Sadly, the answer is simply no!

The fibres in some paper are damaged by chemical decomposition.
This has been massively researched by libraries worldwide. Once the
cellulose fibres that give paper its strength and flexibility have
degraded it can't be made strong again.

It has long been felt that that the issue with wood-pulp paper,
as used to make some "but not all" rolls in the USA, was that the
lignin in the pulp wasn't removed and over time degraded and became
acidic, hence breaking the cellulose fibres and making the paper
brittle. Other research now suggests it was the use of aluminium
sulphate in the production process. But the causes are immaterial
to the owner of a degraded roll.

Conservation for libraries has studied de-acidification processes,
but of course that has to be done before degradation destroys the
paper. Techniques that soak the paper aren't suitable for rolls
because they deform.

Paper selection was a major consideration for roll makers -- it had
to run straight, punch cleanly and not fray on the edges. Longevity
was probably not a big consideration.

Not all rolls have degraded; notably, those made in Europe rarely if
ever go brittle. Either this relates to different material "cotton
rather than wood as the pulp source" or different production techniques.

The piano-roll world is faced with a unique situation in that rolls
encode digital information to send precisely-timed data to a mechanism.
Roll-copying started in the 1950s in a purely analogue manner, with
some timing errors and loss of the original punch pattern.

A good proportion of Ampico recuts were accurate because they used the
original stencils. About 20 years ago digital techniques were developed
that make exact digital copies of rolls by reconstructing the original
stencil, ensuring no loss of any of the data held in the perforation
pattern.

Modern paper used for rolls is made to very different (and much higher)
standards that delivers long archive life as well as good performance
in use.

Julian Dyer

[ * MMD articles about this topic are indexed at 
[ https://www.mmdigest.com/Archives/KWIC/B/brittle.html 
[ and https://www.mmdigest.com/Archives/KWIC/P/paper.html 
[ -- Robbie