Friday Daydreaming - Crazy Carbon Ideas

It's Friday, it's beautiful outside, I'm stuck at work (and yes, I'm doing my work... don't worry).

My first wild idea is, how thick of a carbon print do you think you could make? That is, how high of a relief?

I mean, like 1 inch, 2 inches? Imagine a glop with much less pigment than what works for typical coatings. I'm thinking to pour a solid "cake" of gelatin in a form/dam that is at least 1 inch deep or so and letting it dry for the necessary time (a week or more?). Then, expose it through the base, because transferring seems out of the question, and if you're pigment concentration is just right, you might be able to get a humongous relief. Almost to the point where it's a sculpture.

2nd idea; anyone ever made a carbon print with finely ground coffee as the pigment? That might smell nice.... what else could you use?

Talk amongst yourselves...

Here's a link to a thick tissue thread on the Bostick & Sullivan Carbon Forum: LINK

I'm not sure if Bill followed up on his initial thick tissue experiments ... he also posts on Sandy's Carbon Forum under the name wildbillbugman. He's a chemist and excellent printer and does some amazing work. He'd be well worth contacting on this.

Thanks Jim, that's exactly what I had in mind. Unfortunately though, the picture is super small and gives no indication of the sculptural effect.

Still trying with coffee....

I made a ball-mill to grind it really fine, but it was still not fine enough and the particles separated out. I have tried straight ground coffee and also coffee after it has been through the expresso machine. In all cases, a piece of unsensitsed tissue melts out fine, but every attempt to print has so far ended up as leather on paper that will not even melt when boiled; I seem to be getting some sort of reaction with the gelatine/coffee/dichromate using my normal tissue recipe (one that works fine for soot). Gum printing coffee on the otherhand works fine, although with brushing on the mix it is tricky to get an even coating.

Cocoa powder behaved in a similar manner to coffee, however instead of smelling sweet, it smells really rank after being sensitised and exposed.

What I have found though is that with oils that are inherent in coffee and soot etc., some of the really old glop recipies work the best! My current recipe contains a fair proportion of soap and without adding isoprop alcohol etc., I can pour bubble-free straight after running the glop through a filter. I have often wondered whether adding oil to modern pigments and using the old soap-based glop recipies may be worthwhile, but I need to wait for the weather to cool a little more so that I can start pouring tissue again. I did try grinding straight charcoal (oil free) and then using soapy glop but it foamed like crazy and was a disaster; probably why everone stopped using the old recipies with modern 'clean' pigments.

Best regards,

Evan

The thicker the carbon tissue, the more light-scattering, the less acutance. Diminishing returns IMHO.

Coffee for carbon? It's not just for developing negs any more!

If you want 3d pieces from gelatin , you can use a hologram on top of it and slowly scan the hologram with green or blue laser. Hologram cast focus the laser beam as it is designed and finaly you can make an engine or car chassis out of photopolymers instantly. This is subject of rapid production.
If you can sensitize the polyester , acrylic or epoxy to light , you can play it with layer by layer exposing or with a focusing lens , you can focus the laser inside of liquid and produce strange shapes.
Best and cheapest way to make a 3d image inside of a transparent medium is to buy same size flotal flat window glass , printing semi transparent pictures each of it and stack them. Result is great.