Re: Resinotipia-Namias (fwd) (#2)

[Judy Seigel <jseigel@panix.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 10:05:23 +0100 (GMT+01:00)
From: "alberto.novo@tin.it" <alberto.novo@tin.it>
To: Judy Seigel <jseigel@panix.com>
Subject: Re: Resinotipia-Namias

=======================================

I made an extended research -both historical
and technical- on resinotype between 2002 and 2004, reading chiefly ALL
the articles on this subject found on "Il Progresso Fotografico" (the
magazine founded by R. Namias and Ganzini in 1894) from 1922 and about
1930-35, plus all the four editions of the "Manuale di Resinotipia" and
any other paper on this subject, included two articles from Russian
manuals kindly given me by a Russian photographer.

Main conclusion:
NONE of the Namias articles and books tell you how to make the powders
by yourself. The farm where they were prepared (Stabilimenti Chimici
IRTA in Rome) don'exist anymore and so also this possible source of
information can't be contacted.
An Italian amateur collector has five
original small boxes of resinotypic powder, and he gave me a few grams
of these precious particles. But at present -I am a chemist without a
lab- I haven't found the opportunity to analize them. They might be
more complex than a simple colophony-stearine-pigment mixture, in
addition almost surely oxidized by the aging.

"Stearine", in the
Italian meaning, can be both the glycerine stearate (a "pure" fat,
still used as a flux for lead plunging soldering, and this is why you
can still find it), or to stearic acid. But in the English patent one
example cites specifically "stearic acid" though in a very small
amount, 1%. I think it was used chiefly to lower the melting point of
the colophony, making easier to mix the fuse mass with the pigment.
I
find quite easily colophony here in Venice, where it is used for wood
restoration. It costs a couple of euros/kg.

Ciao
Alberto


PS from Judy... Thanks (awesome !)