Flatten Fiber

[DilbertJM]

I'm going to attend National Portfolio Day here in Florida and I want to present my work in a presentation case. I want to print on fiber paper but as we all know, it curls. I've tried to flatten my work before in a press but it still curves too much to look neat in a case. Does anyone have any tips?

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Heat it in a press, then put it between two clean sheets of mat board and weight it down with books until it cools completely. It should stay flat. You could also hinge mount and mat them for presentation.

 

[Claire Senft]

You may find it helpful to slightly dampen the back side of the print before heating in the press.

 

[boyooso]

I haven't used the dry mount press method for prints that weren't going to be mounted directly after the flattening.

The tried and true method in my lab is to let the prints dry until they are almost dry. They should still have some moisture in them, but the surfaces should not be wet.

When they get to this point put them between matte board with some sort of interleaving between the prints and put some weight on them(5 gallons of water, sandbags?). The longer they remain like this the flatter they will remain. I would recommend 2-3 days of flattening at a minimum. If you were to take the prints out and leave them in the open air, I believe they will start to slowly curl, but that is in our very dry climate.

Another fact worth noting is that if you take a curly print and try to flatten it with pressure it will take a VERY long time for it to flatten out. I have some that took 2 months, but they are FLAT and seem to be staying that way.

What I'm saying is that if they finish the drying process while being held flat it helps.

I hope that helps.

Corey

 

[Claire Senft]

If you dry mount you print to another piece of photo paper back to back that should eliminate all curling.

 

[jp80874]

It helps to dry the fiber prints between two screens slowly, say over night. The screens restrain the curling process. Calumet offers these screens http://www.calumetphoto.com/item/ZN7000.html . You can make them or buy them at the big discount hardware stores. Be sure they are clean or your first use will cause tears.

The reverse, applying heat with say a hair drier without the screens can give you something that looks like a potato chip. Heat and pressure applied to a really bad potato chip can crack the edges of the print.

The nicest set up I have used is at the University of Akron (Ohio) where I take courses. They have a Seal 500T dry mount press that applies heat and pressure. Next to it they have an older 500T without heat. The first unit flattens the print between two clean sheets of paper. The second unit allows the heat to dissipate while holding pressure on the print. If you are rushed as when several students want to flatten prints at once before a critique, they have some flat weights. We take the cool prints out of the second press, put clean paper on a table, stack our prints, add a clean sheet of paper and put flat weights on top. Prints done this way have stayed flat for at least the three years I have been using the process.

John Powers

 

[Ole]

I've got an old ferrotype press. When the prints are almost dry but still moist, I put them in the press for a while at 50°C with the print side out. Works like a dream.