[alt-photo] Re: Albumen, Cyano, larger printers - oh my!

[francis schanberger]

Chris,

I've discovered that with the glass rod fewer passes are better than too
many. A serendipitous discovery a few weeks ago was when I coated with the
puddle pusher with a smooth paper like Crane's Cover taped to a piece of 1/4
thick safety glass that we use for contact printing here at school. It was
perfectly flat and the bead of chemistry covered the entire sheet of 8 1/2"
x 11" paper in one pass. I just let gravity do its thing. No hand pressure
except to pull the rod across the paper.

-francis



On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 9:21 AM, Chris <stratton at sunlink.net> wrote:

> Hello Alternative Photographers!
>
> I just finished a late night session of albumen and cyanotype printing, and
> have a few questions and observations..First
>
> the two main questions:
>
> 1) May I invite some discussion of how to get a uniformly dense layer of
> New Cyanotype on papers such as Arches Platine and 'acidified' Fabriano
> Artistico? (note - I have not tried the kindly recommended 5% HCL 'until the
> bubbling stops' for a pre-treatment of the F. Artistico paper, but
> anticipate doing that soon). I've been using a glass rod, but haven't
> mastered the calculus of applicator pressure, number of passes until too
> much grain is raised, sensitizer volume, etc. I am tempted to FLOAT the
> paper, in search of uniform density.
>
> 2)Can anyone recommend a large, possibly monochrome, format printer for
> REALLY BIG STUFF? - one which might be available on eBay, used, with
> (ideally) some sort of continuous ink supply.. I'm headed towards the idea
> of a 300 dpi (or even less?), graphics type of printer for 'near poster size
> or larger' negatives.
>
> Observations, in no particular order:
>
> 1) 2.5% Borax toner seems to lighten and then shift towards gray the "new
> cyano" images. I wonder about using lead acetate...
> 2) The Hypo fixing (sodium thiosulfate or sulfite - don't recall this
> morning - plus a smidge of sodium carbonate) - seems to lighten the Albumen
> prints.
> 3) Double albumen (alcohol bath between) coated F. Artistico paper does
> seem to result in raising the paper's grain.. wonder if the ETOH plus NH4CL
> albumen could be SPRAYED on to harden the albumen????
> 4) Can anyone encourage me that gold toning or other is worthwhile for
> Albumen prints?
> 5) The hair dryer seems to make no difference (no fogging) w/ the albumen
> prints.
>
> Well - that's enough space taken up in your great list-serve postings for
> now.
>
> Thank you for the past great help!  Chris
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>



-- 
francis schanberger

www.frangst.com