Re: Still Gum solution problems

Richard Sullivan (richsul@roadrunner.com)
Mon, 03 Nov 1997 18:43:25 -0700

<x-rich>At 12:24 AM 11/4/97 +0100, you wrote:

we suspect that

>it must be the glyoxal as it was the first time this happened and the first

>time we used glyoxal, and the first time we stored gum lumps in the same

>room as the papers are sized and hardened - but are we right or not?

>

>Help, please

>Hans & Chia

If there were enough glyoxal fumes in the room to pickle your gum, you both would be mummies by now. It can't be the glyoxal.

Weird. Very weird. Since you say it is a thick and snotty, I will make some weird guesses

It sounds like the gum has hardened or in a more technical sense it has crosslinked. Colloids like gelatin or gum are molecules of thousands of atoms in long strings. As I understand it crosslinking happens when something breaks up the strands and the tangle up making a tighter mass

Possible causes (wild guesses).

It got a disease. Some form of bacterial or fungal growth occured, you didn't say how long it was dissolving. If it was 24 hours or more, I'd bet on mold contamination. I've seen big lumps of snot come out of bottles of ammonium citrate developer, like half a liter lump in a liter bottle, after it sat around for 6 months or more in the dark.

Sunlight might do this, not likely, but maybe.

Did someone sneak it into a microwave to speed it up? Radiation?

I am out of ideas.

Send it over to Peter Frederick, he'll make prints out of anything.

I saw your presentations in Bath. Nice work!!!!!

Dick Sullivan

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</x-rich>