Yes, that's about a 3% solution -- I don't know what got into Terry --
maybe all that metric they have over there made him forget a quart is
about a litre. If you have 28 grams in 1000 cc, move decimal one place to
left on each and you see it's 2.8 grams per 100 cc or about a 3% solution.
> After soaking for one minute, I squeegee the paper, dry, then resoak in
Marilyn, I think that might be your problem -- soaking about a minute is
too little. You want to soak at least 10 minutes, in quite warm (but not
hot, say between 110 and 140 degrees F) gelatine, so it really soaks in.
Slip your paper into the bath, turn it over to be sure there are no
"airbells" keeping gelatine off the paper underneath, then turn it over
again, to be sure the other side is all wet. Then add the next sheet,
keep on adding as many as you have or can fit into however deep your
gelatine is. Then after total of at least ten minutes, reverse stack, and
remove sheets, letting the first in be the first out, etc.
I find, BTW, that unless the studio is *really* hot, or I have at least a
gallon of gelatine, so there's a big body of liquid to keep the heat, it
helps to either put tray in a larger hot water bath, or pour out and
reheat mid-operation. When the gelatine is quite warm it will be quite
liquid, and not only drain off the paper better (and watch that squeegee
-- too hard and you maybe do raise nap, or whatever), but soak into paper
better.
> gelatin with 25 ml of formaldehyde. The stain contains the pigment used
> and is usually in a "sunken" area of the print about 2-3 inches in
> diameter.
>
Could the "sunken" area be area didn't get enough gelatine to begin with?
> Afraid to be too rough with the paper while wet, I am thinking now I am
> not squeezing enough of the gelatin out of the paper before drying,
> leaving too much gelatin in the paper and it is pooling.
That could be, but I doubt "pooling" would look sunken. So you could have
pools and sunken areas, but they would be two different things (I would
think).
> I haven't tried glyoxal (I will), and I will also try using some
> pharmaceutical grade gelatin. (I'll look you know where for ordering
> these supplies--see I can learn.)
Incidentally, I know people add hardener to the gelatine, but I've never
done that, and don't know the parameters, pitfalls and practicalities.I
let the gelatined paper dry, then dip into hardener bath, and hang to dry
again.
Meanwhile, depending on the paper you're using, I'd be leery of 2 coats of
gelatine. People do it, sometimes ye gods, even three. But on a relatively
smooth or medium paper, I find one coat enough. Two gets too slippery.
Better to add a second coat a way down the line if you're doing so many
emulsion coats, or such long soaks you're worried first one is washing
off.
As for other gelatines, if you go to the archive, you will see I wasted
about a week of the time yet remaining to me trying those cockamamie
gelatines from pork, ossein, science, wherever. In *every* case, with or
without hardener, with and without distilled water, with and without
prayer, curses, incense and whining, even with *GLOY* they were bad, bad,
bad. Most didn't clear at all... of the very few that would release a
pigment emulsion, not one was better than the same mix on the same paper
sized with 3% Knox hardened with glyoxal. I haven't a clue why that was --
my hypothesis is that those gelatines don't clear in England either, but
since no one does auto-development in England, they don't notice.
Which is to say, while people claim to use these gelatines for gum
printing, I failed to do so. I will be very interested to learn if you
succeed with any of them. (It could be the NYC water.)
> got me out of the rut I have been in--repeating my
> mistakes.
Ah, there's a great big world of mistakes out there waiting to be made. We
can none of us afford to waste time with repeats....
Cheers,
Judy