First Palladium Prints and a filtering question.

[Brian Bullen]

My first palladium printing session was an immense amount of fun and also very rewarding but one "problem" I came across was filtering the metal salts. I tried filtering for the first print (4x5) and realized my technique might be flawed. So my question is, What method do you use to filter your palladium/platinum solutions? and does the Na2 need to be filtered as well?

 

[mark]

I have no clue what the answer is, but those are nice. The tree in the water is beautiful.

 

[Vaughn]

I never have filtered my metal salts (11 years of pt/pd printing). Do you have chunks in the bottles? Are you getting black spots in your prints?

Don't shake the bottles -- let any chunks stay at the bottom and don't suck them up with the eye-dropper. You might try a warming bath...say 100F or so...to get everything back into solution.

Vaughn

PS...I do have lots of bottles of Pt and pd that have the tiniest bit of solution still in them...after a long time they do have developed some chunks. One of these days I'll try to combine them all (might get a ml or so), heat them up and try to use them. If you are just strating, and have just bought your chemicals, I am surprized that you have any chunks to worry about.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I've never filtered mine either - you'll lose more solution to the filter paper than you will recover from removing the particulate from the solution.

 

[Jim Noel]

Where did you get the idea that filtering is necessary? I have never heard of anyone doing so unless the solution was poorly mixed to start with.

 

[payral]

I don't too, just get everything dissolved and don't filter.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

If you have some black specks floating in the bottom of your solution, don't try to get them into solution - they're just the metal coming out of solution, but they actually represent far less material than you think they do. Let them stay settled on the bottom and don't get them sucked up into the solution you coat. If you find large crystals (this is more likely with Platinum than with Palladium), heat the solution and shake vigorously until the crystals dissolve. Then let it sit until any black specks sediment out onto the bottom of the bottle.

 

[Alan9940]

I've never filtered any of the metals, either. Kevin Sullivan recommended to me some time ago that the bottles containing metals SHOULD NOT be shaken. I assume this means you really don't want to try and re-mix any metal that may have come out of solution and settled on the bottom.

 

[Brian Bullen]

Thank you all for the replies, I read a "NOTE" on pages 83-84 of Dick Arentz book about filtering coating solutions as well as reading posts of others who filter and just assumed it was common practice. I haven't had any problems with black spots or sediment of any kind. I am happy I didn't try to filter more than a few drops, all that precious palladium that could have been wasted!

Mark, thank you for the compliment, very kind of you!