Re: cyano recipe, now kitchen gum recipe

Trevor,
I think I've elucidated my kitchen recipe for gum here on this list many
times, but at risk of boring the list again: I call it my "dump and pour"
method. Considering it has served me well for the last two years through
easily 500 gum prints, you could say it is extremely "kitchen tested".

Dump your am di crystals into water, putting in enough so that always there
are undissolved crystals lurking on the bottom of the bottle. This is if you
don't have wildly varying temps in your "dark" room as saturation will
change from 50 to 90 degrees.

Take your blender and whip up your gum powder and water. You can mix it
1+1, 1+2 or 1+3, weight to volume, gum to water. If you don't want to
measure, mix it thick at first and dilute later. Just err on the side of
thick and not thin. Add 1/2 tsp sodium benzoate to every 100g of powdered
gum you mix, but be sure to dissolve it in some of the water (warmed) first.
Or use a drop of thymol (100% solution) for every 5 oz. gum.

Take your 14/15ml tube of pigment and dump it in a 50 ml nalgene bottle of
gum. This is about a tablespoon of pigment to 2 T of gum.

Sizing is 4 packets of Knox per liter/quart of water, with hardener of
choice mixed in. The hardener you have to figure out for yourself, as that
has to be measured correctly...I would use about 1/1/4 tsp glut to a quart
of gelatin. Glyoxal would be 3-5 tsp. Same with formaldehyde. I don't use
chrome alum.

At time of use, I use 1 tsp of the gum/pigment mix, 1 tsp of gum, 1 1/2 tsp
of water, and 1/2 tsp of am di. 1/2 tsp of this will cover an 8x10 nicely,
or basically I do about 6 11x17's at once.

However, I will say that it is a total commitment to the gum process over a
period of time that produces successful prints; in other words, it sounds
easy, but a lot of the success comes in learning how to brush correctly, how
thin a coat, how much exposure, which colors to use in combination and
dilution, how to develop, and all that stuff is only learned by doing IMHO.
Do 500 prints and you'll get it. Each person develops their own method over
time that works for them.

Keep in mind, too, that the mistakes you do may end up being your favorite
prints.
Chris

----- Original Message -----
From: "trevor cunningham" <tr_cunningham@yahoo.com>
> how about a kitchen recipe for gum?
Received on Sat May 7 06:53:39 2005