[alt-photo] Re: sizing options for color gum

[Henry Rattle]

Hi - a year or two back I did some comparisons between PVA and my normal
sizing of 3% food gelatin brushed on with formalin in a well-ventilated
room. I use Saunders Waterford HP or Fabriano Artistico traditional white
CP, and these tests were with 3-colour prints coated in the order Winsor
Yellow - WN Permanent Rose - Winsor Blue (green shade).

The conclusions in my notebook were:

PVA sizing is very quick and easy, and the paper curls less than with
gelatin.

At full strength, the Gamblin PVA-sized paper was hard to coat evenly with
gum/pigment - lots of fish-eyes and lots of brushing needed (with gelatin,
the gum goes on with relatively little brushing). Clearing the gum coat
after exposure was almost too easy.

With 1+1 dilution of the PVA, gum coats went on better. 1+2 was harder to
clear. Clearing was OK, but the final texture of the prints, viewed close
up, was noticeably less smooth with the PVA than with gelatin. The print
texture is "speckled" - maybe I did't coat the PVA well enough - but I
preferred the smoother final texture of the gelatin-sized print. Of course,
as Chris pointed out, PVA is a lot less hassle than coating with hot, smelly
gelatin!

I'll give it another go - and next time I think I'll try Diana's approach of
sizing only after the first colour layer. What a great source of inspiration
this list is!

Best wishes to you all

Henry


On 17/01/2012 14:08, "Peter Blackburn" <blackburnap at hotmail.com> wrote:

> 
> Fair enough, to each his or her own. I originally kept an iron around as a
> "quick fix" to help flatten papers which exhibited too much curl and buckling.
> 
> Peter J. Blackburn
> 
>> From: dhbloomfield at bellsouth.net
>> To: alt-photo-process-list at lists.altphotolist.org
>> Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 08:51:52 -0500
>> Subject: [alt-photo] Re: sizing options for color gum
>> 
>> Thanks, Peter.
>> 
>> I actually did all but #3 on your list.  Honestly, I don't even think
>> I own an iron (and don't plan on buying one any time soon).
>> 
>> The final coat  (unsized) was actually fine; I certainly would have
>> had no problem exhibiting it.  In a side-by-side comparison, though, I
>> simply didn't like it as much as the one I made with a thin coating of
>> PVA, so -- as stated before-- I'll happily go back to using that.  My
>> preference is subjective, for sure; I could have shown it to someone
>> else, and he/she may have liked the other better.
>> 
>> And I don't actually find using PVA a problem-- at all.  It's non-
>> toxic, relatively inexpensive, lasts forever, extraordinarily easy to
>> use, doesn't leave a shine when I apply it, and takes very little time
>> to apply (certainly less time than ironing-- though, at this point, I
>> can barely remember what ironing is like??).
>> 
>> Thanks again.
>> 
>> Diana
>> 
>> On Jan 17, 2012, at 8:35 AM, Peter Blackburn wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> Just a brief follow up on this portion of Diana's comment,  "I know
>>> you're already aware of all this, and this isn't specifically
>>>> what you asked--  but I also recently printed an image on Fabriano
>>>> soft-press without sizing all, using what was only in the paper.  It
>>>> did really well, though I felt the third coat wasn't as "clean" as I
>>>> would have preferred-- so I just went back to using the PVA.  I just
>>>> know for sure, using that, that I won't have a problem." My
>>>> suggestions would be 1) be certain the chosen pigments are capable
>>>> of printing "clean" on out-of-the-package Fabriano if brilliant
>>>> highlights are desired. 2) be certain the paper is completely dry
>>>> between coats, and 3) before applying an additional coat, try
>>>> ironing the paper with the iron set on a midrange heat selection.
>>>> AKD is a type of synthetic wax which "melts" under heat. Ironing
>>>> the paper will restore a bit of smoothness while rejuvenating the
>>>> residing AKD in the paper.  Cheers everyone!
>>> Peter J. Blackburn
>> 
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