In my experience the first coat develops further only with physical
controls - please see further comments below
>
>I think I am seeing this re-development although I haven't done another test
>to confirm or disprove it. I suppose I can harden the first coat after
>development, but I am interested if others are seeing the same thing.
>
Now this an interesting observation! I have made gum prints this way for
a number of years - deliberately pulling prints out before they are fully
developed. The next coat is applied and exposed, and when I undertake
development of the second coat, physical development can strip back the
unharden parts of the 1st layer that wasn't fully washed out. This can
provide quite interesting effects, especailly if you use contrasting
colours for the layers. My usual procedure is to ensure that the first
two coats are given full auto development - after that I experiment with
a range of much shorter development times. I tend to keep the exposures
constant though.
Hamish
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Hamish Stewart
Gum Bichromate Photographer
http://www.vrx.net.au/ad163/artists/hamishstewart.html
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