>My big fear of ziatype, being very similay to p/p, is working with
>damp emulsions. I have lost, and I suppose most here have lost a
>negative because of damp emulsions. Mylar interlayer protects but
>does it diffuse thru distancing the negative and paper?
So far after making several hundred Ziatypes, I have not messed up any
negatives, except one, and that was last August. It wasn't, however, due to
damp paper, but that I dropped sweat from my forehead onto the coated paper
and then it transfered to the negative. It ruined the negative. It wasn't my
negative, but David M. Kennedy's and an original at that. David was very
amused. (He'll probably tell us how amused he was.) I was very embarassed.
The term 'damp' is not quite accurate. Very little humidity is neccessary.
The lithium palladium salt is very hygroscopic so only a little humidity is
neccessary. My test is to 'snap' the paper and listen. Dry paper crackles,
humidified paper goes "flupple flupple" instead of 'crackle crackle". I
think in the beginning printers should use the mylar 1 mil or .5 mil if you
can get it. Light Impressions sells it I believe. I run my bare hand over
the print to detect any moisture and to feel its dryness. If the hand drags,
I dry it some with a cool air stream. I think most printers will get the
hang of it after a while and feel pretty safe. I mil mylar seems to have no
visible effect on image sharpness, but I haven't done any serious testing of
this. I plan to do some visual microsopic tests on this in the future.
I use an Oster (service model 304-01A) industrial blower. It weighs about 15
lbs and looks like a very big squirrel cage hair dryer on a stand. It has a
1/20 horsepower motor. The blower rotates so it can face upwards or
downwards. it has a cold and low-med-high settings for heat. The blower part
is about 1 foot off the table top and I have it facing downwards at about a
45 deg angle. It will dry an 8x10 nicely. If I put it on a box and raise the
whole unit so that the blower nozzle is about 18 inches off the table top it
will dry an 14 x 17. Larger prints need to be hand moved under the spout.
The air coming out far exceeds the air coming from a hand hair drier. I got
it from my mother who got it from a pet supply place. She used it for drying
her dogs after grooming at dog shows. It costs about $125.00. richsul@roadrunner.com (OK, I ramble
but I thought I'd mention this neat thing.)
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