RE: stretching paper

I've tried dangling weights on wet paper. Even devised a tool that grabbed the paper and stretched it over a steel drum (like a medieval torture device). Didn't work. I'm convinced that shrinking paper exerts enough force to move railroad cars. One method that really works is the one Dick Sullivan has on his website: dry mount the print on a stiff substrate and keep it there until the print is finished. But this adds major hassle to the process, so I don't do it.

As for paper that expands rather than shrinks: I've experienced something close. Once, using Fabriano 5, I noticed that it only shrank in one direction, meaning the picture got smaller sideways but remained the same top to bottom. When I tried to expand the paper via humidification and wetting the backside, it expanded in BOTH directions, rendering it too BIG top to bottom. I never could figure that out.

Keith

 -----Original Message-----
From: Ender100@aol.com [mailto:Ender100@aol.com]
Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2004 9:14 AM
To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
Subject: stretching paper

  Here's another offbeat, weird, perverted question—relax Judy, it has nothing to do with why you frequent "Fight Bars"....

  I know many of you do multi-coat processes and have to deal with the embarrassing syndrome made famous on the Seinfeld Show called "shrinkage".

  I was musing the other day and I wondered if there are papers that also have the reverse problem or a comibination of the two, which might be called the Viagra Syndrome, or stretching. By this I mean when handling the wet paper, perhaps even thinner wet paper, does picking it up by a corner and swinging it about the room cause the paper to stretch at all? Hanging to dry by a corner?

  I think this would be noticed when trying to get subsequent negatives to register properly.

  Or, perhaps it is not an issue at all.

  OK, I'll go back into my cage now.

  Thanks for responding in advance of my question.....well you know what I mean.

  Mark Nelson
Received on Sun Feb 15 11:14:42 2004