> Kerik, I'm curious how you get your traditional (?) pt prints dry enough
> when you blow dry with no heat. Is your dryer putting out some heat even
> when it is on the cool setting? I'm also curious as to what your steps are
> in double coating Platine.
Actually, I rarely use a dryer at all. My standard procedure for traditional
platinum is to simply let the coated paper air dry. For example, when I
double-coat Platine, I apply the first coat (for an 8x10 I use about 0.6 ml
each of ferric and Pt/Pd and make 4 to 6 passes with a puddle pusher) then
hang the paper by a corner to air dry. Depending on the temp/humidity the
paper is ready for a second coat in 15 to 30 minutes. It is ready for the
second coat when I can drag my fingers over the surface and they don't
"stick". For the second coat, I apply slightly more sensitizer since the
paper is now a little more absorbent. After the second coat, I again hang the
paper to air dry. It is typically ready to print in about an hour or less. I
control contrast with different developers, so my sensitizer can all be the
same for a given batch of paper. Using this approach, I can have 15 or 20
sheets ready to go in a couple hours, then I just start printing. By the time
I finish the second coat on the last sheet of paper the first sheets are
ready. If you were controlling contrast with the sensitzer and working with
one sheet at a time, this would be a very slow way to work with all the drying
time involved. In that case, the cool air hair dryer would speed things up.
Recently I've begun printing on Rising Gallery 100 vellum surface. This paper
works well with one relatively heavy coat (about 1.0 ml each of ferric and
metal for 8x10) then allowed to air dry for 15 to 30 minutes.
Kerik.