Re: Yupo, was Re: Temperaprint & Gum

This thread got me to doing a quite experiment.

As far as the archivalness of Yupo which is biaxially oriented
polypropylene (BOPP) it is in the mid category, whatever that might be.

Modern plastics are far better than they were 25 years ago and do get
unfairly bad mouthed. "Paper has proven itself..." "You can't trust
accelerated testing ..." blah blah, are thrown out, and yes there is a bit
of truth to them. That being said there are some modern materials that are
considered to be in the archival category The most intriguing one is
Melinex, a Dupont special form of Mylar which is designed for archival
applications. Some Ilford color "papers" are on Melinex film. Wilhelm rates
Ataraxia's color carbons on Melinex at grater than 300 years and I suspect
the color pigment is the limiting factor and not the Melinex.

I had some microporous Melinex here designed for inkjet printing. Virtually
all of the new inkjet materials are microporous, that is they have been hit
with some kind of electronic field that puts zillions of very tiny holes in
the surface. These holes are in the micron size, extremely tiny. For some
reason the newer pigment inkjet inks will not stick to gel coated paper so
they've gone to this system.

Colloids stick well to Melinex and it makes a nice support for carbon
prints. I suspect Petes temperaprint system would work on it as well and
perhaps a good surface for gum printing.

Just for fun I coated it with some vandyke solution. I brushed it on and
then wiped it off with a paper towel leaving only that which went into the
holes. I suspect I printed it while part was wet so thus the streaks.

The dmax is about 1/2 of what one would want.

The image is at: http://www.photohistorycenter.org/Melinex1.htm

Ok, so what? A bad image. But something to think about. It may be useful
for other things or maybe a way to up the dmax. A start perhaps in a new
direction.

--Dick

At 10:10 PM 1/30/2004, you wrote:
>Loris,
>
>No, Yupo did not absorb the sensitizer. It just set on the surface and
>waited to dry, with some puddles. Evening out the sensitizer over the
>paper, without streaking, was the main problem. Try to apply a coating of
>vandyke, kallitype or pallaidum sensitizer to a sheet of plastic and you
>will see what I mean.
>
>I may try Pete's suggestion and add a bit of colloid to the sensitizer and
>try again. Would this make the coating an emulsion?
>
>
>
>Sandy
>
>
>
>
>
>>Sandy, how did you manage to coat kallitype emulsion to Yupo? Does it absorb
>>the emulsion or you coated a "primer" (gelatin and such) before? What were
>>the problems when coating kallitype?
>>
>>Regards,
>>Loris.
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Sandy King" <sanking@clemson.edu>
>>To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
>>Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 6:20 PM
>>Subject: Yupo, was Re: Temperaprint & Gum
>>
>>> ...
>>> I have used Yupo as a base for making carbon tissue and in this
>>> application it works very well. I have also attempted to print on it
>>> with kallitype and palladium but with mixed results. If one could
>>> ...
Received on Sat Mar 13 15:34:00 2004