Dry barite in the air?

aXL · 2004-03-01T20:55:47+00:00

Moin, Kollegen! Ich brauche mal wieder Rat von Euch. Um zwei Fragen geht's: - Bringt die Lufttrocknung von Baryt eine schönere Oberfläche als die Maschinen...

aXL

Hi there, everyone! I need your advice again. I’ve got two questions: - Does air-drying baryta paper produce a nicer finish than machine-drying? - What’s the best way to go about air-drying? My baryta press is in the way, and I’m actually planning to buy a table press as a replacement once I’ve got rid of that monster. But lately, customers have been telling me time and again that air-drying baryta paper is a great idea. Today, one of them really ruffled my feathers by saying that the finish turns out better if you don’t run the sheets through the press. :D Regarding the setup: I’m processing Maco Expo RF, which may soon be replaced by Classic from Impex. The press I’ve been using for drying so far is an old 3 kW drum unit. We run it at 60°C and the slowest possible feed rate. The contact pressure is also as low as possible. The resulting surface is a lovely silk-matt finish – without a cloth texture, even though we place the prints with the emulsion side down on the cloth. What can you tell me about the finish of an air-dried baryta print? I generally like gloss, but I’ve heard that a true high-gloss finish is no longer possible with the current, less toxic gloss toners. Of course, I’ll give air-drying a go. But the question is, what’s the best way to go about it... What wet adhesive tape do you use? How wide does the overlap need to be when sticking? (I’d like to make the most of my paper’s height.) What’s the best surface to use? A glass plate or, better still, a (slightly absorbent) wooden board? How do you prevent dust from settling on the surface whilst it’s drying? How damp should the prints be when they are stuck down? Are there any dry spots (I have extremely hard water here, which can cause problems when the film is drying despite the use of a wetting agent)? Do you treat the prints with a wetting agent before placing them on the board? Thanks in advance, Axel

cfb_de

Hello Axel, > Does air-drying baryta paper produce a nicer finish than machine-drying? That’s down to personal preference. It’s a matter of taste :-) It’s a sort of mix between a silk-matt and a gloss finish, leaning more towards the glossy side. The surface retains a slight texture. I really like it. For the mounting tape, I use one from a company in Hatten that’s quite closely linked to www.sw-magazin.de. My method is as follows: - Saw a wooden frame, slightly larger all round than the photo paper (cheap laminated wood; hardboard isn’t very suitable) - Glue the print in place with the ‘nicer’ side facing inwards - Adhesive tape width depends on the paper: for 18x24 I apply a strip about 8mm wide to the print, for 30x40 1.5cm - Place another print on the other side of the frame to keep everything dust-free - I take the prints out of the washing, wipe them off and stick them straight away. - I’ve never had any dry spots, as the drying direction is from ‘inside’ to ‘outside’ (water in the hat area 3–4) - No wetting agent - I then simply leave the frame(s) in my room overnight. The next morning, the print hangs taut as a drumhead and perfectly flat in the frame; it’s cut out and that’s it. Another nice touch is to polish the prints with wax afterwards. I like the surface even better this way, and the whole thing becomes quite resistant to fingerprints. You’ll need to experiment a bit before you work out just how damp the tape needs to be so that it sticks to the dry wood but doesn’t slip off the wet print. I place the tape on a work surface and run a moderately damp sponge over it. Hope this helps, Best regards, Franz

Urnes

Hi Franz, Could you explain that bit about the wax again? It sounds interesting. Best wishes, Sven.

cfb_de

Hi Sven, I got the idea of waxing when I was reading the good old Croy (Dr Otto Croy, *Enlargement with All the Finesses*). I’ll just copy one of my posts from elsewhere here – that’ll save me having to type it all out again: Here goes: Hi Karl Heinz, thanks for letting us know about the shelf life! I’ve always felt a bit guilty when waxing baryta paper (using Erdal shoe polish with beeswax, EAN: 4 001499 010651). Like you, I got the tip from the old Croy book ‘Enlarging with All the Finesses’. I’ll copy the relevant chapter here (with my comments in square brackets): --> Varnishing and waxing the prints Wet enlargements that are satisfactory in tonal range and density often look lacklustre after drying. They have, as they say, ‘sunk in’. Only high-gloss papers are free from this; deep-matt papers, on the other hand, sink in the most. If the surface is given a gloss afterwards, the brilliance of the new image is restored to a certain extent. This is achieved by waxing or varnishing the prints. To wax the picture, it is rubbed with so-called ‘Cerat’, a wax paste containing a ‘gloss resin’ to achieve a special sheen. Cerat: White wax: 100g Turpentine (pure): 100g Dammar resin (or synthetic resin, e.g. maleic resin): 4g [On dammar resin: http://www.umweltlexikon-online.de/fp/arch.../Dammarharz.php ] (The wax and turpentine are first melted in a bain-marie until a homogeneous liquid is formed, in which the dammar resin is then dissolved.) Once cooled, a paste remains; take a small amount of this onto a flannel cloth and rub it over the pictures until they have taken on a faint sheen. Irregularities in the surface caused by retouching paint or scraping usually disappear in the process, and the picture becomes more brilliant and three-dimensional. Images to be treated with Cerat must not have been retouched with positive retouching pencils, as the retouching would be wiped away during polishing. Retouching with the pencil can only be carried out after polishing, although it will then no longer adhere as well. Positive varnishes [you probably meant the aggressive solvent] An even stronger sheen and thus a more intense deepening of the shadows is achieved by varnishing the prints. Various positive varnishes are available commercially for this purpose, which, depending on their composition, produce surfaces with varying degrees of gloss. They can be poured over the flat print, applied with a brush or – for the most even result – sprayed on with a spray bottle. Unfortunately, some commercial positive varnishes contain linseed oil or another greasy oil. If the emulsion has been scraped beforehand, the grease penetrates the paper felt at that point and causes a dark, spreading stain that can no longer be removed. The following recipe is a good one: Gloss varnish for pouring and brushing on: Dammar resin: 10g Petrol (pure): 75cc Sulphur ether: 75cc [Sulphur ether is now called ‘dimethyl sulphide’; it is highly skin-permeable, carcinogenic as hell and extremely flammable!!!] Pour the varnish over the picture and let the excess drip off over a corner. The pictures will be dry after about 24 hours. [And the lab technician may well suffer severe liver damage!] During dilution with the same amount of petrol, the varnish can also be applied with a brush, although this tends to result in an uneven finish. Due to its high flammability, it is less suitable for spraying. [To put it mildly. As an aerosol, the stuff is likely to be *spontaneously combustible*!] <-- So says the old master :-) (Prof. Dr Otto Croy, Vergrößern mit allen Finessen, Heering-Verlag in Seebruck am Chiemsee, 76,000–85,000 copies, 1966, pp. 205ff) The typos are mine and were accidentally slipped in whilst copying. So I gave it a go with solvent-free shoe polish. I like it, and it also works well for removing lint from the drying cloth or dust from ‘cellar drying’ in the wooden frame. What’s more, fingerprints are no longer a problem, as you can polish them off again. Done. Best regards, Franz

Urnes

Many thanks, Franz, I was thinking of you at the weekend when I happened to come across the Cerat recipe in a book about making paints using casein binders. It immediately occurred to me that this could work for waxing the prints too. In the book, the wax is mainly used to make areas of colour more durable. Best regards, Sven.