Re: Gum Preservatives

[sam wang <stwang@bellsouth.net>]

Hi Judy,

I have no experience in killing my own wild boar nor grinding my own  
corn, but my experience with the commercially made gum solution has  
been awful. One batch may be OK, then gallons afterward simply did  
not dissolve, with or without dichromate and exposure. I think they  
were a bit too GungHo in putting in the poison. After donating to  
printmaking folks all the unused gallons of gum, I tried mixing my  
own and never went back. That's when I discovered that smelly gum  
worked almost better. So the trick is to put in just enough  
preservative to prevent spoilage.

Same as why I use 1/5 of dichromate compared to everyone else. But we  
won't go there.

Mark is in Toronto teaching a workshop with Sandy. Otherwise I fully  
expected some wise speculatiions on Smellographs, Odortype...

Yes, Judy, wasn't it just yesterday that we had the exchanges? Have  
these kids today even heard the term "gungho" before? Gosh.

Sam

On Dec 6, 2006, at 11:41 PM, Judy Seigel wrote:

> On Wed, 6 Dec 2006, sam wang wrote:
>
> > There are many preservatives that can be used. Judy suggested  
> > formaldehyde. Thymol works well enough for me except when I put in  
> > too little - I wanted to put in a minimum amount. The smelly gum  
> > printed fine, maybe even better than fresh. I hope you didn't  
> > throw out your spoiled gum.
> Maybe there's something about mixing your own gum arabic like  
> killing your own wild boar or grinding your own corn, but I like to  
> get a gallon of lithographers gum & then another gallon from the  
> same lot if I like it... It works fine (as far as I know) and the  
> poison is already in it.
>
> However, as a beginner I did mix gum (Sam, did you REMEMBER that?   
> Uh oh!) & found that one drop of 40% formaldehyde per 2 ounces of  
> whatever the mix, kept the gum seemingly unchanged for years. But  
> now formaldehyde is difficult to get in the US ... I had a  
> prescription from a friendly MD. (It's used for athlete's foot, or  
> was.)
>
> But that $17/gallon gum from Daniel Smith is now I understand about  
> $50/gallon (either the drought, or the prevalance of gum printing  
> driving up the price), so it could make sense to mix yr own.
>
> I think it was Chris marvelled at early gummists tolerating the  
> odor of sour gum... but EVERYBODY & most places stank to high  
> heaven in the days before laundromats, hot running water & flush  
> toilets....  Mere gum arabic was probably drowned out.
>
> Judy