Re: Coating prints with polyurethane wood finish

From: Dan Burkholder <fdanb@aol.com>
Subject: Re: Coating prints with polyurethane wood finish
Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2006 13:19:42 -0600 (CST)

> Breathing Color (www.breathingcolor.com is the actual manufacturer;
> inkjetart.com is a distributor) says that the University of Michigan is
> currently conducting archival-standards tests on all Breathing Color
> substrates and coatings. Final results are sill 6-8 weeks off according
> to Breathing Color.

Good to know. I don't know what they are testing for, but assuming
they are doing accelerated aging test with high temp, humidity, ozone,
UV, etc., for physical integrity, then the last piece we should be
concerned about is efficacy of such treatment to silver images.

So Loris's suggestion was to try this on VDB or Kallitype, but I
personally don't use either of them.

> Having seen Jack Spencer's coated prints, I can tell you that his
> mixture of gloss and matte gives a nice semi-gloss surface which works
> perfectly for the reach earthy tones he's using in his latest color
> work.

Ok, that "wet" look question had the original intention elsewhere.
The description I found for this product did not describe what kind of
polymer is used. This sort of coating varnish can be polyurethane, but
it could be polyacrylates or other types. Because of differences in
optical properties, acrylic varnish doesn't look as "wet" as
polyurethane type.

> Breathing Color says even a completely "gloss" coating of their
> Glamour II veneer will not give a "wet" look when applied to matte or
> textured inkjet papers. Seems much the same would apply to most of the
> papers we use for alt printing. Of course the surface appearance is
> going to change; only you can decide if it's for the better. ;^)

That's good, I actually like semi-matte look on my emulsion coated on
hot pressed FAEW, and I want only slightly more gloss.

I like glossy surface on commercial fiber paper but glossy RC paper
stock is not my favorite...
Received on Fri Feb 3 15:16:21 2006