Gum Solution decision

Hans Nohlberg (chiahans@tripnet.se)
Fri, 14 Nov 1997 00:18:11 +0100

Thanks to all who answered our "cry for help" with the snotty gum solution.
What we now will do is to throw the brown paper bag with the gum lumps away
even if we are not sure what it really was that went wrong - twice...
(This was written some days ago but not sent...)

No, We did not throw it away - we made a new solution after 10 days at home
- a new snotty gum solution! We will keep this solution to see what happens
- does it rotten or (probably) not, will it be thinner after a while or
not?

As we still have some formaldehyde at home we will continue to use that. We
have once felt the smell of rotten gum (we had read in some old book that
the old masters said that the gum is better the more rotten it is). Don't
want to feel that smell again.

We do not have glyoxal at home otherwise we could have made a test. Glyoxal
is very expensive in Sweden - about USD 50 per liter and we chose glyoxal
for the safety of the students. That's why it was the first time we used
it.

Thanks again and we are glad that we saved the alt-photo world from
snoto-rotten-prints....

Hans & Chia

PS The papers we sized with gelatin and hardened with glyoxal worked
perfectly!!! (but why does the gum/pigment/dichromate emulsion not harden
when you use very fresh papers? If glyoxal hardens gum...) Perhaps we have
to buy glyoxal anyway...... and store the gum lumps in a tight glass.