FotoDave@aol.com
Date: 02/09/00-09:23:44 AM Z
> Interesting question, Dave. How heavily hardened is
> it?
Hi again Ray,
The gelatin is not heavily hardened. It was hardened with grocery-store alum,
which I understand as not so effective as pot. alum or chrome alum, but it
has worked very well for my gum printing.
By the way, I am still using my grocery-store alum that I bought about 20
years ago for sizing rice paper for Chinese brush painting. It turned out
that I didn't do that much painting because of engineering school and other
things in life; but I still like it because I think it is least toxic as it
is used in food preparation.
I use gelatin+alum only and it works very nicely. Highlight clears
*completely*. I read that gelatin hardens even better in slightly acidic
condition (harderner formula are usually acidic), so in the future I might
try adding a little vinegar and I will be "pickling" my paper. :-)
> If you try Laim's suggestion and it doesn't work,
I haven't tried Liam's suggestion but I will try it today (Thanks Liam! I got
your reply about 2 hours after I posted my question. Internet is nice!)
The suggestion is very interesting as it reminds me the suggestion to soak
overexposed gum in alkaline though I never realized that the alkaline was
actually "undoing" the hardening effect! I think it should work. I will let
the list know of the result.
> perhaps you might want to try an enzymatic
> approach...I don't know how well it would work on
> hardened gelatin, but I sure would like to find out!
How does that work and what should one use? You mean like using enzyme that
eats the gelatin? I might not do it for this batch (because I don't actually
have that many to unsize --- only 10 11x14 but I figure they are useless now
(for gum at least) so I might as well try anything) but I am still interested
in the enzymatic approach.
Dave Soemarko
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