Loris,
Well here is my method for pre-shrinking
FAEW or FAT.
First I pre-shrink parent sized sheets 10
at a time in our garden sized bath tube for several hours with luke warm water.
Initially each sheet is immersed and allowed to become saturated with water.
After all of the 10 sheets are in the tube I will inter-leave the sheets slowly
over a period of several hours. I handle the sheets with care to prevent
scuffing of the paper surface. After 5 or 6 hours (by that time the water is
cold). I’ll pull the sheets and hang to dry completely. After the sheets
are dry I will repeat the process. Over a period of days I will pre-shrink a
batch of 100 sheets.
After the second pre-shrink cycle I size
the sheets with gelatin hardened with glutaraldehyde. Those are hung to dry and
after drying are stacked carefully in one of the drawers of my flat file
cabinet. The stack is weighted to help flatten the stack.
I print cyanotype on the sized paper and
never have a problem doing so. Printing the cyanotype on the sized paper makes
for a sharper image, IMO. I register negatives by eye for gum exposures by
laying the coated sheet on a light box with a sheet of glass lying on top of
the negative. The negative is taped in place once the registration is achieved and
then exposed to UV. I never have any problem registering negs 11x14 or smaller.
For gum over palladium I acidify the paper
in Oxalic acid (5% for 20 minutes) though I don’t do this with parent
sized sheets. I’ve never had a problem with the so called calcium
carbonate deposits coating the paper surface after the oxaclic acid bath. I
also have concerns about using an inorganic acid such as HCL affecting the archival
qualities of the paper, even a dilute solution.
After the palladium layer has been printed
then I size the paper with gelatin hardened with glut. I have done as many as 5
to 6 gum layers, though typically it’s 3 or 4 gum layers with different
dichromate dilutions with different pigment colors. I’m not much into gum
over cyanotype unless I do tri-color. I never have a problem with staining, my prints
look sharp.
So, there is more than one way to skin the
gum cat. I am concerned about the pH of the paper after clearing in sodium
metaborate as a result I wash the prints well. I have a high chlorine content
to my tap water so I’m sure my prints aren’t pH neutral after the
wash. But I soilder on never the less.
Don Bryant