I followed the recent formaldehyde/alum debate with great interest and I
would like to thank Mike Ware and John L. Bordley, Jr. for their tips about
GLYOXAL .
I work a great deal with Gum printing (a couple of my prints were included
in the CAMERA & DARKROOM , April 93, article on the subject) and have always
wished I could skip the boring and unpleasant task of sizing paper at all.
Stephen Livick gave me a tip a couple of years ago about using a much
heavier paper LANAQUARELL, 638 grams, which he uses very often without any
extra size. That paper is made in France and was not easy for me to obtain
here in Stockholm but I did find a paper very similar, SAUNDERS WATERFORD
638 grams,
from the St. Cuthberts Paper Mill in England. The CP surface is almost as
smooth as ARCHES BFK, yet because it is so thick it shrinks very little. I
find that though the paper is sized quite heavily I still need to do at
least one coat of extra size to get the results I require.
Stephen and I have discussed the idea of having a paper made just for Gum
printers which would include the extra size so that we could skip that
process. To commission a paper mill to produce such a paper would mean an
order of at least 500 sheets possibly 1000. But if there are enough of us
then it might be possible. The standard 56 cm x 76 cm would be most practical.
Anyone interested ?
Does anyone have any other paper tips ?
Before I go I would also like to mention that I am trying to collect
material for a publication that would be of use to Swedish students starting
out in Gum printing. There are plenty of good manuals in English that are
mostly text. I would like to produce something with only the basics as far
as text goes, which points the way to all the other texts and instead
concentrate on
showing the rich variety of images being produced out there. So please let
me know if you are interested in this at all or have names of Gum printers
who's prints you have enjoyed in the past.
Jeff Stanford
Petrejusv. 32
121 38 Johanneshov
Sweden
tel. +46 (0)8-659 86 09
jeff.stanford@mailbox.swipnet.se