Cyanotypes --- Flat as a pancake!

Woot!

I just bought myself a t-shirt press to flatten cyanotypes and it arrived today! Here's a sample print. Man... I wish I had taken a "before" photo because it was a mess. My biggest annoyance with cyanotype was that I couldn't get them flat. With this thing I get them flat in 2 minutes.

I got this idea from a couple of YouTubers that use a similar t-shirt press to flatten FB prints. I don't currently print FB paper, but I thought it might work well for wet watercolor paper. I tried 2 minutes at 90°C and I'm really happy with the result.

Yeah, looks good. Alt. process prints like cyanotypes generally flatten out with a regular clothes iron just fine, so that's what I've used on numerous occasions. That t-shirt press may be nice for FB paper, which is a different ballgame if you try to flatten it. Cyanotypes etc. don't have a gelatin layer, which is what creates much of the problems w.r.t. flatness.

koraks said:

cyanotypes generally flatten out with a regular clothes iron just fine, so that's what I've used on numerous occasions. That t-shirt press may be nice for FB paper, which is a different ballgame

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I have a press like that one. I never need to flatten fb prints, since they come off my drum drier flat, but it does mount photos way better than an iron does. When you use an iron, you almost always have wrinkles at the edges. You don't get those with the t-shirt press. And it's also way faster - I mounted a dozen 8x10 fb prints in about 15 minutes with it.

Some people say you shouldn't mount prints. A mounted fb print looks waaaay better than an unmounted one.

I never mount my prints, but I agree that...

Don_ih said:

A mounted fb print looks waaaay better than an unmounted one.

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So I really should. One of the reasons is that I don't have a press and as you confirmed, actually mounting prints with a clothes iron is tricky to say the least.

I have on occasion mounted a series of carbon prints to museum board using spray glue and pressure. Worked sort of OK. And yes, they did look good that way.

koraks said:

spray glue and pressure

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That's what I tried before I ever got any mounting tissue. They all failed on me.

Another thing about the clothes iron is it can get the mounting tissue too hot, which makes the adhesive soak into the mounting board and fail.