shown surround the cylindrical shell 102 the latter surrounds and is rotatable relative to a carrier 113 which is non rotatably installed in bearings 115 provided in the frame of a calender or an analogous machine the cylindrical shell 102 is rotatable around antifriction bearings 112 and selected portions of such shell can be straightened out or deformed by selected hydrostatic supporting elements 114 reference may be had again to commonly owned u s pat no 5 033 317 to van haag the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference as already mentioned above instead of admixing the plastic substance to paper pulp prior to making of a web which yields the discs 6 or 106 it is also possible to make the web from paper pulp and to thereupon impregnate the web with the plastic substance prior to the making of discs 6 or 106 the moisture content of the web can be reduced prior to the making of discs 6 or 106 e g by heating the mixture of pulp and plastic substance for a short interval of time to a temperature of approximately 100 u00b0 c such heating takes place prior to compression of the stack of discs 6 or 106 an important advantage of the improved method is that the material of the discs 6 or 106 need not be heated in the course of the hardening step in other words the temperature of the discs need not be raised above room temperature as used herein the term 34 room temperature 34 is intended to embrace primarily room but also outdoor temperatures without further analysis the foregoing will so fully reveal.