Re: Paper for Oil Printing

[Richard Sullivan <richsul@earthlink.net>]

It's more or less an open secret now.

Yes I have a coating machine.

Sandy did a presentation at APIS Santa Fe on carbon. (Rats!) and my life 
has been hell ever since.<grin> I got the bug for carbon and spent a few 
months playing with the laydown method of making tissue. I thought it might 
make sense to see if I could machine coat it commercially. In early October 
I traveled to Europe and found two people with rudimentary coating machines 
still making their own tissue. Both were kind enough to share their secrets 
with me. I also got to spend the day with the Fresson family who also were 
very helpful -- and no, I did not get the Fresson secret!

At one time I was an aerospace engineer and find this kind of thing to 
satisfy my creative urges. As Von Karman once said: "Science describes what 
is: engineering creates what never was."

Photography is part engineering and part art.


--Dick Sullivan

At 11:27 PM 5/1/2002 +0200, you wrote:
>Hi Richard:
>
>Richard Sullivan wrote: "had coated some gelatin 290 Bloom on Stonehenge 240
>gm  paper on my coating machine"
>
>What do you mean by a coating machine? Do you actually have a machine that
>coats your paper for p/p, oil, etc?
>
>Regards,
>
>Alejandron López de Haro
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Richard Sullivan" <richsul@earthlink.net>
>To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
>Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 9:51 PM
>Subject: Re: Paper for Oil Printing
>
>
> > A month or two ago I had coated some gelatin 290 Bloom on Stonehenge 240
>gm
> > paper on my coating machine.
> >
> > On a lark I decided to sensitize it in 5% ammonium dichromate this was
>just
> > a best guess idea as I was going on memory. I exposed the neg and washed
> > the paper for about 5 minutes. I then found an old bromoil brush and some
> > Senfelders black litho ink and started pounding away.
> >
> > That produced the first print of the trees in the snow. Note that these
> > were test negs and not anything exceptional as I was experimenting with
> > carbon tissue.
> >
> > This took about an hour of pounding to produce.
> >
> > The second one was overexposed and it took another hour to ink up. This
>was
> > my first attempt at either an oil or bromoil but I've watched Gene
>Laughter
> > ink prints at APIS.
> >
> > Both prints are on a page at:
> >
> > http://www.bostick-sullivan.com/carbon/OildPrints/oil_print.htm
> >
> >
> > No glycerine no fancy schmancy stuff, just gelled paper,  dichromated,
> > exposed, washed and inked.
> >
> > The Stoenhenge comes in 50 inch rolls so I cut it down to a 25 inch and
>can
> > run 15 feet lengths now. I've considered making an oil paper for the
>market
> > but thought there might not be much of a market for it. I have the two
> > prints in our reception room and people are quite taken by them.
> >
> >  From observation oil prints are more vibrant than bromoil. Gosh they ink
> > up nice compared to what I've seen with bromoil.
> >
> > Bromoil does have the advantage of not needing an enlarged negative but
> > from the little experience I've had my recommendation is if you have a
> > large neg go with the oil print.
> >
> > --Dick Sullivan
> >
> >