Re: Glyoxal?

Hi List,

Please excuse cut and paste from two posts...i should be making Powerpoints
instead of emailing!

Thanks Ryuji!! I am so glad someone out there is a paper sampler. Saves me
so much time. I agree, for me there is no reason to change papers either
from FAEW.

Katharine, you don't have the yellowing on FAEW, but you do on Arches yet it
rinses out, so you **have** observed it. I have the yellowing that doesn't
rinse out that varies according to paper type within one brand of paper with
variables of air and light.

Your tests prove that glyoxal does yellow, but not always. My tests prove
that glyoxal does yellow, too, but in degrees. I would therefore hope that
our tests that we have spent so much time on are worthwhile to ourselves
personally and to others on this list. How else would we develop a database
of such problems? Also, there were quite a number of people who reported
this yellowing, because this list is where I heard of it in the first place,
given I was trained on glyoxal in school back in 1998. Too bad we can't
institute a poll and a database type thing like on the PDN forum.

To me, that there is a chance of yellowing is unacceptable, given gly's
equal toxicity to other hardeners and given that other hardeners don't
yellow. So testing that shows yellowing is more valid **applicably**, IMHO,
than testing that does not. Kind of like a condom protecting from pregnancy
that has a 17% failure rate.

But as you usually say, each to his own, and your stains, am di, pigment,
and gly, always wash out so it must be that magical WA water coupled with
your impeccable practice.
Chris

Katharine said:
  I wish I'd kept my test samples. I think I used them for some other
test later, as I'm prone to after I'm done with a test. But it's
probably worth noting here that I sized four pieces of Fabriiano
Artistico Extra-white nearly a year ago and kept them in a drawer for
months, shuffling them so all got Two different concentrations of
glyoxal, rinsed and not rinsed. After six or eight months all four of
them showed no yellowing whatever, and were indistinguishable (in
color, that is; they did have that coarse open surface that that
paper gets after getting wet) from the same paper right out of the box.

So when I started sizing Arches bright white with glyoxal, a month or
two into that test, I didn't worry about yellowing, but the Arches
bright white did yellow, although as I've explained, the ivory color
goes away when the paper gets wet. I tried last week to scan three
pieces of paper: Arches bright white new, the same paper with
glyoxal, and the same paper after gum printing, to show how the
glyoxal ivory color disappears in the gum soak, but the difference
between the ivory and the two whites is subtle and just didn't show
up on the scan; all three looked the same, and I didn't have time to
fiddle with it, so I gave up. But the whites on my prints, for
example, where there should be paper white, are pristine white, not
a touch of ivory to them.

There was a discussion here a year or two ago where many people
chimed in to say that they don't get the ivory color with glyoxal, or
they rinse and don't have a problem, so it's certainly not a
universal observation, even with the same papers. It just goes to
show that no one person's tests should be taken for much, and rather
than paying much attention to anyone's tests, you should do your own
and find out what works for you.
Katharine

Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryuji Suzuki" <rs@silvergrain.org>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 11:59 AM
Subject: Re: Glyoxal?

> From: "Christina Z. Anderson" <zphoto@montana.net>
> Subject: Re: Glyoxal?
> Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 08:15:54 -0700
>
>> The information I am lacking on glut, really, is its use on other papers
>> aside from Fabriano, so at this point I am a one trick pony as far as
>> sizing
>> for gum is concerned.
>
> Glut and my gelatin works very well on Magnani Pescia, Fabriano
> Artistico Extra White, and several other noname papers, and glass,
> among what I tried. I also tried it on some stationary paper stocks,
> which eventually disintegrated due to insufficient internal sizing
> but sizing was not the issue.
>
> But after trying all these I'm done. FAEW is my first pick by far. No
> desire to cut pennies by messing around with other papers. I mostly
> tested papers you suggested so none of these should sound new to
> you. Sorry!
>
Received on Mon Jan 16 17:08:43 2006