Re: The consistency of gum

Katharine Thayer wrote:
>

>
> But now I'm looking at six gums, one of which is the Bostick & Sullivan,
> and they all behave about the same; they all brush smoothly, their
> consistency is very, well, consistent, as is their behavior. (Yes, there
> are differences, but the differences are subtle, not dramatic.) So I'm
> not included to credit the idea that there are huge differences between
> gums. My 2cents.

Slight clarification: I'm testing 5 gums mixed directly from powder and
one dark lithographers' gum (daniel smith's standard gum) All six are
about the same consistency and coat about the same; they "work" about
the same is what I was trying to say. But it wouldn't be accurate to say
that they all print similarly. The differences between the five light
gums are very small, so small that when I run the same test several
times, different gums come out on top each time. This is to say that
statistically there's not much difference between them, and I'll need to
run more tests to be sure that the small differences I think I see are
real. But the lithographers' gum is very different from the other five
in the way it prints. It clears fastest, although they all eventually
clear completely within a reasonable development time. But more
problematic for me, it prints significantly fewer steps than the other
five, and the steps are very distinct from each other in tone. This
makes a really pretty step test, but a bad gum print from my point of
view. It may be just what someone else wants, but too jumpy for my
taste; I want much more subtle tonal gradations. This is such a
consistent finding that I feel confident to report it, while the
differences between the other gums I'm not so sure about.
kt
Received on Tue Dec 2 11:39:37 2003