Well, I've been making Albumen prints for a coupla years, now, following
the early recipes pretty faithfully. I'm no chemist, and my working
methods are probably not as rigorous as they should be (doubtless you'll
get more erudite responses...), but I'm happy to share what I know...
> 1) The Albumen.
> Rather than messing around with egg-white I would like to try BSA (Bovine
> Serum Albumen), purified, powder, off which I "happen" to have a jar full.
> I guess that the cow Albumen should work the same as chicken Albumen. Any
> idea about the concentration? ("educated guess"/startin point : an egg is
> about 50 g, consisting of 58% Albumen (only the white I guess)...). Off
> course I have to add the Ammonium Chloride, but what about the glacial
> acid..is it nessecairy for the albumen "purification" or for the printing
> process?
Okay, I can't tell you anything about yer cows - I trust good,
old-fashioned chickens. Each egg white yields about an ounce of albumen
and it's really no trouble mixing it all up, 'though it would probably
be quicker and cleaner to use powdered albumen. You don't necessarily
need to add the acid, but, as always, it may help to keep your whites
white…
> 2)The Coating, Sensitizing & Toning
> Everything I read seems to indicate that one should coat & sensitize by
> floating the paper on the solutions. Is there a special reason, or can one
> also use brush or rod-coating. And for the toning, does one need a tray
> full of gold toner, or can one also "coat" with toner?
You may just drive yourself crazy trying to brush on anything here; the
coatings can be quite fragile. Those nineteenth century folks may be
dead, but they weren't stupid, and spent lots of time perfecting the
process - by all means, float to albumenize as well as to sensitize.
Double coats of albumen give greater glossiness; dry once from one end,
once from the other to even it out. You may also want to add a couple
drops of photo-flo to your albumen. Depending on where you live, changes
in temperature and humidity will make a huge difference.
As for toning, you probably could brush that on, but it might make
streaks or other "interesting" effects.
> 3)The Gold Toning
> As I understand (gold) toning of an albumen print is almost an essential.
> It seems that there are a lot of toning recipies around. Could one start
> with a commercial Gold toning solution from say Kodak, and what is the
> composition of such a commercial toner; is it Gold chloride?
Toning is just like for P.O.P or salted paper. The toners are made with
gold chloride, the most common being either gold-borax or
gold-thiocyanate - the former for warmer tones than the latter. You can
buy either in a kit from Photographer's Formulary, and I bet Kodak does
make a suitable toner, but I wouldn't know…
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Cor Breukel
>
> http://ruly70.medfac.leidenuniv.nl/~cor/cor.html
> "The Infrared Gallery"
> http://ruly70.medfac.leidenuniv.nl/~cor/ir-gallery.html
Don't pull yer hair out! I swear it's things like this that taught me
the meaning of the word "patience".
Dan Estabrook