> Hot and quick drying has to be strictly avoid or the gelatin cracks and peels
> off.
Hmmm....maybe I was expecting too much in my experiments. The overhead
sheets I've coated look great while wet, and after drying overnight they
still look good. I imagine that one could sensitize the sheet at this
point and print with it without any problems. If I let the sheet dry for
more than a day however, the gelatin gets brittle and starts to peel off
of the support. I bought a piece of mylar a few days ago to try. Then
I'll know how these plastics compare.
The separation of the gelatine from the plastic base came in handy for
testing the properties of the gelatin layer itself though. It allowed me
to coat a sheet with the gelatin let it dry and separate it from the base.
I tried coating with pure gelatin, my usual gelatin/pigment/sugar mix, and
gelatin with twice the sugar. The pure gelatin didn't stick at all and
dried very unevenly. It was quite pliable though. The sugar gelatine
mixes both dried nicely, but were brittle. The extra sugar may have been a
bit more brittle, but it was hard to say for sure. It seems from this
that one would want to use just enough sugar to ensure even drying, while
still maintaining the flexibility of the gelatin. Is this true?
- Wayde Allen