Re: toning cyanotypes; fixing Van Dyke prints; POP toner

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Smieglitz@aol.com
Date: 11/13/01-09:31:05 PM Z


Shannon,

You will want to use a plain hypo fixing bath for VDB. It should be ~2%
strength and since it is so weak, it exhausts quickly. Use just enough
solution to cover the print for about 45 seconds and then dispose of it.
Repeat two more times. The hypo is very inexpensive in the dilution we are
talking about and it makes no sense to use it to near exhaustion as in normal
silver printing (which BTW uses much stronger fixing baths that will rip the
image off a VDB).

As far as a POP toner, I like a thiourea-gold toner (or is it thiocarbamide?)
that lasts much longer and is less expensive than the borax-gold. The former
is much more neutral->bluish while the borax toner gives much
warmer-chocolate/violet tones depending on the time. Of course, there are
some platinum formulas too, but it sounds like cost is a concern here.

I'll be gone for about a week and can't post the formula until my return, but
perhaps someone else has it handy. If not, and you can't find it, email me
offlist and I'll send it to you when I return.

On a related note, anyone know a toner/fixer combo that will retain the
lovely lilac color of a salt print?

joe

---
In a message dated 11/13/2001 21:02:17, sstoney@pdq.net wrote:

<<Thanks to Judy for the tips on toning cyanotypes. I will try some of those suggestions next time I do cyanotypes.

Right now I am experimenting with Van Dyke prints. I have some directions that say to use three changes of fixing bath per 8x10 print. I assume you can reuse the fixing baths, like with any other silver process? Or does Van Dyke exhaust fixer quicker than other processes? Another set of directions just said to "fix normally," whatever that means. For POP I was using two fixing baths, say A and B, five minutes in each. After a lot of prints, I discarded A and replaced it with B and made a fresh bath for tray B. Would a similar system work for Van Dyke prints, or do you really need three fixing baths?

I really liked my POP prints but decided that it was too expensive to use the gold toner all the time. One problem was, it seems that when you start a new printing session you have to mix up a new batch of toner, rather than continuing to replenish the old batch, as you do during a printing session. I wonder why this is.

Does anybody else have a less expensive favorite toner for POP?

--shannon>>


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