Re: Lacquering of Platinum/palladium prints
SCHRAMMR@WLSVAX.WVNET.EDU
Fri, 06 Sep 1996 11:40:05 -0400 (EDT)
Well, gelatin is a protein and very tastey to little bugs and beasties.
Add a little sugar and flavor and you have Jello. Yum! I really don't
know where these creatures originate. They are just around like mold
spores and bacteria. I do know that many of them are very tiny and
extremely difficlt to see. One defense is cleanliness. We use gentle
vacuums and fine brushes to remove dust. If we see evidence of a
tiny beastie feast, then we resort to more drastic measures like thymol
for example. Low humidity and low temperatures will also discourage
these creatures( we are talking relative humidity levels of 40% and
lower which is the current recomendation). If you are using formalin
as a hardner, I would think that would help ward off the bugs.
But, getting back to the original question, there is not way to avoid
using organic materials. After all, a gel-silver print has a lot of
gelatin on it and then there are the old albumin prints, etc. I think
the discussion was about the advisability of putting gelatin or other
stuff on a platinium print. This kind of thing horrifys archivists
because a platinium print on good paper is about as archival as you
can get, so why put something on it that would make a good bug lunch?
All I can say about lacquer is EEEEEEEEEEKKKK! Archivists also do not
care for lamination. The rule is - do as little as possible and don't
do anything that can't be undone. I suppose there are worse things
than coating a platinium print with stuff, but offhand and right now
I can't think of any and now that I have gotten into this I will risk
commenting that I can't imagine why anyone would want a glossy
platinium print or even think that it is a good idea and yes, I know
all about F, E, G, S surface paper and how it changes the appearence
of the image, but we are talking platinium print here.
Bob Schramm