kallitype (was Satista)

Judy Seigel ()
Fri, 17 January 1997 6:15 PM

On Wed, 15 Jan 1997, Carlos Gasparinho wrote:
> I agree that an acid developer is almost a must. All my kallitype =
> developers are in a pH range of 3 to 5.

I tried some dozen developers with kallitype, include all the nasty
chemical-heavy Rochelle salts ones. The easiest, cleanest working &
greatest speed was B&S ammonium citrate (is that acid? did no pH
testing), but so brown it could have been VDB. The one I liked best for
*color* was sodium acetate with tartaric acid. I didn't pH test that
either, tho imagine it was in the range you cite. Color was cool, near
platinum black.

> Leave the gum arabic out. It is not necessary with modern papers. What =
> you may try is what I call proportional sensitizing, i.e. a tranparent =
> (no pigment) gum dicromate print under the satista or kallitype image. =
> It will size the paper proportinally to density of the future ferric =
> print, allowing for better tone separation in the shadows, and increased =
> shadow density.

It isn't clear to me why you *size* the paper. None of the many papers I
tried for Kallitype seemed to need sizing, though that was a while back &
maybe I missed something.

As for today's message saying the undercoat of the no-pigment dichromate
print inexplicably turned green -- I recall Peter Fredrick mentioning that
a no-pigment dichromate print turned green when he did something or other
to it. Was that 1% sulfuric acid? Anyone remember? Who has an intelligent
searcher? Shouldn't be difficult to find. jseigel@panix.com (Maybe your water got acid....)

When you do this undercoat, though, Carlos, how do you register the
subsequent kallitype coat, unless you've pre-shrunk?

Cheers, from 15 degree F NYC,

Judy

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