Re: The case of the missing gelatin: Gum printing problem solved. Ithink.
I was thinking days ago of suggesting the cat might be at fault but
thought that might be too much of a long shot.
Mark Nelson
www.PrecisionDigitalNegatives.com, PDNPrint Forum @ Yahoo Groups, www.MarkINelsonPhoto.com
On Dec 10, 2008, at 9:32 AM, Diana Bloomfield <dhbloomfield@bellsouth.net
> wrote:
Well, here's a follow-up to all my gum printing woes. It got a
little warmer here a couple of days ago, so I decided to try sizing
some paper again. I have one of those little scales with weights,
so I can measure out my gelatin, etc, and since I'm the only one
using this, I usually just leave the weights in the scale, which is
located in what I thought was a safe and inaccessible (to all but
me) place in my darkroom. Well, I started measuring out some
gelatin, and I realized that one of the weights (5 gram weight) was
missing. I eventually found it, but I realized I must have left the
door open at some point, and one of my cats must have been in there,
found it, took it out and started playing with it. So I wondered if
that was the problem I was having before with my printing. The
weight must have been missing before, and I hadn't noticed, and so I
was using 5 grams less gelatin than I normally use. I wouldn't
think 5 grams would make such a difference, but rather than size
some fresh paper, I decided to simply add some sizing (the 5 grams
that was missing) from that earlier batch that wasn't working. So,
I did-- and the gum prints I've made from that same paper, with the
added gelatin, now seem to be working fine.
So I'm thinking the missing 5 grams was the problem-- not the cold
air. Is that possible? I also sized some new paper a few days
later, in the same relatively cold air as before, and I've had no
problem with that paper, either.
I blame this all on the bad cat.
Diana
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