From: Lukas Werth (lukas.werth@rz.hu-berlin.de)
Date: 02/14/01-03:50:46 AM Z
At 15:29 13.02.01 -0500, you wrote:
>
>
>On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Sam Wang wrote:
>
>> >I regularly dry my images when freshly coated in front of a fan, without
>> >heat, however. Generally, it should come as no surprise that I find it
>> >useful to stick as much to a set up routine as possible: fixed drying
times
>> >(10 minutes in front of the fan at an RH of about 50 %), observation of RH
>> >and temperature. By the way, I remember at the beginning of my experiments
>> >with multiple coating, I dried a paper with the help on silica gel. It
>> >permanently shrunk out of registration.
>
>I'm wondering if you dried with silica gel BEFORE THE FIRST COAT if that
>might shrink it up tight once & for all?
>> Enough guess work. Anyone with ACTUAL experiences please step in -
>> what about a drying cabinet for coated alt prints?
>
>
>You'd probably still have to time the time in the cabinet. Also, in the
>5 minutes it takes to coat in a different RH space -- KAPOW !
>
>Stephen Livick has (I understand) total RH controlled studio, something
>like 157 air conditioners & humidifiers. Maybe his studio IS his drying
>cabinet.
>
>Judy
>
>
Sam and Judy,
I am sorry not to be the one with a drying cabinet, but actually, I have
thought of this before, and I think I am going to construct one in a short
time. It should not be at all difficult, what is needed is just a box or
tent-like structure with a small fan.
I am not going for heat, maybe for the same reason as not having an ac:
some of us Europeans still try to save some energy, vane though this may be
in the face of this world's condition.
I wouldn't try silica gel again, because it dryes excessively and
continuously, if it is enough, and blue, until *all* humidity is sucked up.
This process seems too dynmic to me to control easily, also because my
former experiments with chrysotypes suggested that it simply sucks humidity
first at the spots nearest to the gel (with New Chrysotypes, a controlled,
very even state of humidity all over the coated paper is essential, or
otherwise partial colour shifts occur).
Still, let me suggest again that certain chemicals, which provide constant
humidities, may be used for controled drying, or keeping the RH of a paper
stable which you don't have time to finish just now. Calcium chloride,
quite cheap, although I had to buy 20 kg, gives as powder a RH of ca.
5-10%, and as a satisfied solution ca. 45 %. Easy to keep a print in a
large dish or a cat litter tray, attached to the lid (a board) or, if fixed
on a glas plate, lying on a small pot, so keeping it out of the solution.
The only question is whether the fumes affect the coating. I got this
problem when keeping a chrysotype coating for a night over ammonium
chloride which gives, I think, 85 % RH (see Mike Ware's website), but it
might be very helpful for keeping a developed, but unfinished print stable
for some time, if you cannot coat it immediately again after drying.
Combining a drying cabinet and fixed times with such a device, it may be
feasible to get a very controlled drying procedure.
Lukas
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