Re: sizing paper

Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Sat, 28 Sep 1996 11:13:46 -0400 (EDT)

On Fri, 27 Sep 1996, David Morrish wrote:
> Yes, solid glass rods. 3/8" for the 16" rods and 1/2" for the 24" rods.
> Both were MADE by the Chemistry Department's tech services glass blower
> who simply cut them from 4 foot stock and rounded the ends in a flame.

For those of us who don't have a Chemistry department at quite that level
of beck-and-call, not to mention having students who could break glass at
50 paces (and the occasional slip-up of our own)is there any particular
reason for using a glass rather than an acrylic rod?

> What about the usual gelatine soak, but then brushing the gelatine OFF?
> Or smoothing it out with a brush? Or is that just making things
> complicated?

If your gelatine is worm & liquid you can't/don't need to brush it off,
any more than you can brush water off a wet paper.

However you could squeegee or roller water out of the paper & this is in
effect what the rodding does with gelatine -- whether it's necessary is
something I've always wondered about. My guess is that it doesn't hurt,
and makes you feel like you're doing something. I also suspect that
simply making a more dilute gelatine (say 3/4 strength, or 20g/litre) and
not squeegeeing could be as good. There is in any event no "best" for any
one feature as they all interlock and affect each other (paper, size,
pigment, emulsion, etc.)

Cheers,

Judy