Drying in microwave

Matt5791 · May 18, 2006

When drying a print in a microwave do you need it on a low setting?

I tried it the other day and killed the print - I think I had it on full power.

Also, does it work better with FB as opposed to RC?

Many thanks,

Matt.

Muihlinn · May 18, 2006

Drying prints in microwave oven is only useful to check the tones after dry-down, no serious drying can be made with them.
RC paper tends to pop-out their plastic warp.

Matt5791 · May 18, 2006

Basically I need to dry a FB print quickly as I have to put it in the post very soon after I have made it.

I do not have a dryer/glazer but I heard that you can use a clothes iron?

Thanks for any help,

Matt.

Joe Lipka · May 18, 2006

Assume you have washed and toned your FB print, first. Usually start on medium power for a minute for and 8 x 10 print. After the first minute, take the print out, see how much it has dried. Put it back and dry it some more, but no more than 15 to 30 seconds per try. Don't put the paper back in the same spot in the microwave because microwaves do have "hot" and "cold" spots.

I usually dry my prints for about a minute or so. Then I eat them with fava beans and a nice chianti.

unregistered · May 18, 2006

You can have problems with uneven drying on the surface using a microwave. A hair dryier will take you 10 minutes max and you can do it in a way that it will be flat. Start off by squeeging both sides, then just hair dry 1 side for a few minutes, then turn it over and repeat. Just keep going thru that till its dry.

noseoil · May 18, 2006

I use the MW only for testing. It works well enough to check dry-down, but I won't use it for finished prints. If you need to use a print immediately after the wash, get some RC paper and it will be dry in a few minutes with just some moderate air flow or a heat lamp. This is the one small advantage I can see which RC paper has over FB. Time from exposure to dry print is measured in minutes this way without all the time in a wash cycle. tim

Washing machine is slightly faster than a dish washer for FB.

Matt5791 · May 18, 2006

Thanks for the advice.

Matt

pentaxuser · May 18, 2006

Alexis Neel said:
You can have problems with uneven drying on the surface using a microwave. A hair dryier will take you 10 minutes max and you can do it in a way that it will be flat. Start off by squeeging both sides, then just hair dry 1 side for a few minutes, then turn it over and repeat. Just keep going thru that till its dry.

I had always thought that the problem with a hairdryer and FB was lack of flatness. So based on this, taking a few prints out of the wash, squeegeeing them and placing them in the likes of a Paterson drying rack to get at them with a hairdryer results in flat prints after a few minutes.

I must admit I have always been put off FB because of the amount of washing and even more so by the effort then required to flatten the print. Anyone else had success with this?

pentaxuser

unregistered · May 18, 2006

Washing times are greatly reduced, when using products like Perma Wahs, to 15 min. total for full archival standards.

As for the use of a hairdryer, its pretty easy. After squeeging both sides, back first, place on any surface, although screens work better. Put the dryer close to the surface, and go across it back and forth, up and down. You will see the paper start to curl at ome point, at hich time you should turn it over and do the same process with the dryer. Continueing to flip the print over and over, you will end up with a flat print. Also as you work your way down the rint, grabbing the top edge and curling it toward the bottom will also help counteract the curl you got when doing the other side.

Had to do this for many years when a rush job was coming down to the wire.

Matt5791 · May 19, 2006

Just to report back - I went with the hair dryer and had a really good result in a few minutes.

Thanks for all the help
Matt

unregistered · May 19, 2006

ScottH · May 19, 2006

I use the MW similarly to NoseOil as posted previously. FB for testing drydown only. Works like a charm. 30 sec at 50%, rotate, 30 sec at 50%. At that point the surface is pretty dry but substrate retains a little moisture.

I find if I dry it ALL the way, it curls so badly that I have a hard time evaluating the print in full. This lets me bend back some of the inherent curl, and after another minute of waving it around to get the surface 100% dry, I can estimate my next exposure.

Lachlan Young · May 19, 2006

ScottH said:
I use the MW similarly to NoseOil as posted previously. FB for testing drydown only. Works like a charm. 30 sec at 50%, rotate, 30 sec at 50%. At that point the surface is pretty dry but substrate retains a little moisture.

I find if I dry it ALL the way, it curls so badly that I have a hard time evaluating the print in full. This lets me bend back some of the inherent curl, and after another minute of waving it around to get the surface 100% dry, I can estimate my next exposure.

Hehe I use a paper that has 1% or thereabouts drydown! No need for a microwave! Alexis' method of using a hairdryer for rapid drying does seem like a good idea however.

btw the paper I'm using is ADOX Fineprint - known in a previous life, I believe, as 'Varilour'.

Lachlan

Max Power · May 20, 2006

The very first time I used a MW for drying FB, I was doing it in using Les's method for testing dry-down in FB prints. Although the print was so curled up as to be useless, what I did notice was that the surface was gorgeous; much tighter and glossier than air-dried prints. That sent me on a quest to mess around a bit more

What I ended up choosing as a method is the following: Take the FB print and squeeze as much water out as possible between two paper towels. After that, I put the print into the MW, on an overturned plastic plate (that lifts it off of the glass and doesn't absorb the heat). I usually 'cook' the print for about 20 seconds, reshape it a bit and keep doing 20 second intervals until the print is dry. I then put the print between mat-board for a week or so to flatten it. I really like the finish.

The next step for me will to probably get a print dryer, but for now, this works really well.

Kent

Drying in microwave

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