Do you keep heating the water? In my experience after the first 10
minutes temperature has dropped considerably. In fact adding a whole
lot of paper in itself drops the temperature. How many sheets do you
shrink at a time?
I'm curious about the baking after the initial hot water shrink, about why
baking the dry paper shrinks it still more... Have you tried just the
baking alone? Have you measured further shrinkage after the baking? When
I measured, I found that the paper might either shrink or expand again
after rewetting and drying, presumably according to room temperature &
humidity.
> The next step, of course, is sizing & hard sizing the paper. After which=
When you say "hard sizing", you mean a bath in a hardener?
> After the final sizing I then=20
> punch my registration holes. The paper at this point is remarkably rigid=
> and I feel I really get clean punched and durable registration holes. =20
It occurs to me that the difference between our experience with the paper
may be due, at least in part, to the fact that you use several coats of
size (2?, 3?) which may itself be what makes the paper very rigid.... it's
embedded with hardened gelatine. (I use only one coat of gelatine,
because I prefer that surface for working on.)
> 100% cotton, like my king size cotton bed sheets=20
> which if washed in extremely hot water and dried with heat will end up=20
> queen size (shrunk in all directions). The heavy pre-shrinking=20
But you said you hung the paper to dry *before* heating.... ????
> allows me to consistently print=20
> large images with meticulously accurate registration using simple 2 pin=20
> registration.
How large is "large"?
Hope you don't mind all the questions, but this is all very new and
amazing.... Thanking you kindly in advance.....
Judy