Re: humidity in your darkroom........

Christine,

My problem in damp dismal England is the humidity is too high during the
winter month¹s which caused coating problems with my egg-tempera-print
process the ambient temperature, also had an effect and after doing a few
tests.
I found that a temperature of about 20 degrees Celsius allied to a humidity
of 50% is about right. a couple of hot air space heaters and a cheapo
barometer did the trick.

Pete

> is really important.
>
> I know most of you see this as a conspicuous variable, but for some
> reason, I had not given it much thought until Mark Nelson stressed its
> import. So I went to the local smoke shop to purchase a hygrometer for
> $7.99, the kind that goes in your humidor if you like cigars, and
> discovered to my dismay that the humidity of my darkromm (aka my
> bathroom) was a dismal 14%. No wonder my nose hurts. So I got a
> cheapie humidifier and ran it for an hour before I coated - getting the
> humidity up to at least 40%. I also used Mark's suggestion of passing
> the paper over the humidifier immediately before coating. You will not
> believe the difference in my prints. Rich, rich, smooth, dark blacks,
> even on unsized Crane's. And NO bronzing! None! My Arrggghhhyrotypes
> have transformed into argyrotypes, and I think I can make this deadline
> after all.
>
> Of note, I compared several papers - unsized Crane's, sized Crane's.
> Buxton, and Rives BFK. The unsized Crane's was surprisingly the best,
> with the sized (by myself) being the worst. Buxton was second, and
> Rives was third, not so great. The best print so far has been on the
> unsized Crane's with and extra .5g Sulfamic Acid added to 50 ml of
> Argyotype sensitizer.
>
> It's funny it was such a simple thing. Kinda like when your car dies
> and you bring it to the shop and ther like, um, you need a new switch
> so your car knows it's in park, when you thought you needed a whole new
> starter.
>
> So Judy I think you were definitely on the mark when you were discussing
> the bronzing your students were getting on the VDBs when they blow-dried
> - I theorize iron-silver processes greatly dislike dry air.
>
> Thanks everyone,
> Christine
>
>
Received on Mon Jan 12 10:38:27 2004