Re: Lamp black - is it the Devil or not?

Kate M wrote:
>
> Hi Katherine, I was told fairly early on that lamp black is not good for
> gum because of its oily origins....

is this just one more gum myth?

Yep. Or more precisely, it may have been true 100 years ago but is no
longer true. When I was told several years ago that lamp black has oily
residues in it that will compromise the paper, I had a long talk with a
chemist at Daniel Smith, who told me that it's simply not true.
Contemporary lamp blacks are made very cleanly, are 100& carbon, and
100% archival.

 As
> far as I recall it was said that it would reabsorb into the paper during
> development in a random way because it floats rather than sinks. Any
> comment?

 Well, the carbon fibers that make up lamp black are very fine it's
true, and they do tend to float in water, but the pigment is encased in
hardened gum and so it's not going to behave differently from any other
pigment in development. The pigment is encased like a beetle in amber;
think of putting a beetle in amber into water. The beetle won't be much
affected by the experience.

> I hate Ivory Black - its too brown for me. Not that I use black much
> anyway.
>

I don't either, but when I do use ivory black by itself, I add blue to
it to counteract the warmness.
Regards,
Katharine
Received on Thu May 26 07:34:59 2005