Coating Absorbent Mulberry Papers

Hello friends--

I keep reading that some folks get lovely effects by coating palladium (or platinum) onto Japanese mulberry paper (also called Kozo I believe). So I got several sheets and tried it. And it was just like coating on toilet paper. All my expensive liquid soaked right through the paper.

So I tried sizing. First I diluted some PVA glue 1:1 with water. That had no effect that I could see. Then I tracked down some Arrowroot starch (Japanese grocery store had it). Boiled up some at a concentration of 20 grams per liter of water. Dipped the paper and hung it up to dry (rather tricky process since the wet strength of these papers in right up there in the toilet paper range as well). The Arrowroot starch helped some, but really not very much.

Then I decided to broadcast my plight to all you assembled experts. How the &*%%$#### do you work with these papers? In the few cases where I used a humongous amount of liquid and got an image they have a rather unique beauty. But there must be a better approach than what I am using.

Help. And thanks. Ron Reeder

Ron, whose Kozo are you using? I've had good success with the 2 Kozos that B&S sells. They require more solution than normal paper, but not a WHOLE lot more.

Kerik said:

Ron, whose Kozo are you using? I've had good success with the 2 Kozos that B&S sells. They require more solution than normal paper, but not a WHOLE lot more.

Click to expand...

Kerik--

I just went down to Dan Smith and purchased about six different types. Some are called mulberry paper and others are Kozo this and that. I have not tried them all (probably won't) but all the ones I have look roughly to be the same absorbancy.

You seem to be saying that it just comes down to finding the right type of paper and living with the absorbency??

Has anyone tried drymounting an absorbent paper onto a non-absorbent backing?

Thanks for the feedback.

Cheers, Ron Reeder

Ron, Kerik is right.

There is Kozo and there is Kozo. There are a lot of different varieties, and 80% of them end up being soggy toilet paper when you coat them. I have had great results on the B&S stuff, so that is the safe route. It has appears to have a fair amount of sizing and a slightly harder finish that keeps it from behaving like a sponge.

If you want to experiment, I suggest you buy one of the sample books from Hiromi paper ( http://02a9443.netsolstores.com/samplebooks.aspx ) and tear a corner from the various kinds of paper and dunk it in a tray of water for 5 minutes and see how it handles after that. You can also get a pH pen and check for acidity - the more acidic the better for pt/pd.

The bottom line is that I did this, and I did not find any papers superior to the B&S papers in any significant way. But I found a lot that were worse.

clay said:

Ron, Kerik is right.

The bottom line is that I did this, and I did not find any papers superior to the B&S papers in any significant way. But I found a lot that were worse.

Click to expand...

Thanks guys--

The conclusion seems to be that B+S have done the hard work and I should just try one of their papers. I shall toddle off and do just that. Thanks for saving me a lot of thrashing about.

Cheers, Ron Reeder

i've been playing around with B&S's light kozo, and have been very happy with it. i find that i need to add additional water to the coating solution (as much as the FO).. so if it's 20 drops FO, 12 drops PD, 8 drop Pt.. then i'll add an additional 20 drops of water

Kerik and Clay,
I just ordered a small amount of both of B&S's Kozo.
Is there anything special I should do with this? Any acid bath, or short incantations necessary?
Thanks,
Steve
www.scdowellphoto.com

My technique is to double coat - with the first coat diluted with 50% distilled water.

Magic brush,naturally.

I dry each coat with a hair dryer to set it in the fibers and then let it re-humidify in the dark under a cool fan for 15-20 minutes. I generally don't let the first coat re-humidify that long - maybe 10 minutes or so.

The main reason for waiting at all after the first coat is to make sure that one part of the paper is not dryer than another when I do the second coat. The dmax really dances around on this paper depending on the humidity. I get the best results when the ambient humidity is in the 40-50% range (not difficult in Houston)

Always helpful Clay. I'll let you know how it goes.
Steve
www.scdowellphoto.com

This is an old thread, but was wondering how you made out, Steve...did you get results you were happy with?

Also, before coating a new paper try using FO only, then if the paper falls apart you haven't wasted expensive metal salts...