Re: Kreene

[Jon Lybrook <jon@terabear.com>]

Hi Keith,

I totally understand.  I must not have been very articulate that day.  
No glass ever, just Kreene taped across the bottom of the frame with 
strips of foam core stuffed into the channels where the glass used to 
sit to help with sealing off the bed.  I never did any testing with 
Kreene under the glass since I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to 
manually smooth out wrinkles with the glass in the way.  The ability to 
feel grit through the Kreene is a huge QC advantage I believe.  Smooth 
the kreene with (clean) hands, a rag, or one of the flexowands I cite, 
which are expensive for what they are, but work well.

If you want to take baby-steps, try it with both.  I was going on 
Harold's advice, who said they used to retro fit their plate burners 
that way before they bought expensive new ones that used kreene as part 
of their design.  I wouldn't hesitate to remove the glass again, or if I 
were in your shoes.  If it's not what you expect, you can always put the 
glass back in.

If you do decide to jump in with both feet and remove the glass, you 
might want to make it easy on yourself get someone to help you for moral 
support if nothing else!  I think you'll be pleased with the results 
once you get the resultant added static under control. 
Best of luck and let us know how it goes!

Jon

Keith Taylor wrote:
> Hi Jon,
>
> The  Kreene will arrive today and I'll be replacing the glass with it 
> immediately, but in the archives (2005) I read that you used both the 
> Kreene and glass. This solved the Newton ring problem you had then, so 
> why did you change to Kreene only? I'm also assuming I'll be able to 
> use the setup (Kreene only) successfully  with platinum and gum too. I 
> don't want to find out later today that I didn't have to take out the 
> 33"x44" piece of glass!
>
> THANKS!!
>
> Keith.
>
> Re: Vacuum Cover Sheet for exposing Poly plates?: SOLVED
>
> From: Jon Lybrook
> Date: 09/30/05-09:25:01 AM
> Boxcar Press and the company that provides them with some of their
> plates, Anderson and Vreeland, were most helpful and gave me detailed
> information on the use of Kreene in conjunction with advice on static
> control (Kreene is very static prone). Kreene plastic gets taped over
> the entire blanket of the vacuum frame, on top of the film and plate. I
> then turned on the pump and smoothed out any wrinkles or bubbles with
> the Flexowand (which is like the pad one uses to clean dust from record
> albums, only longer). To get better pressure, I then lowered the glass
> down over the Kreene, which didn't seem to create any problems.
> Exposure time didn't seem to change, but presto, no newton rings
> anymore. Shot 3 plates and no newton rings, 3 for 3.