Getting Fiber Based Paper Flat

[PVia]

Marco...

Squeegee the print on glass and dry face down on fiberglass screens.

 

[Andrew Kleinfeld]

blotter rolls

I've never found anything as good as the blotter rolls you could buy through the 70's or maybe 80's. Even ingle weight fiber papers dried nicely. Now I dry between screens, then drymount. Nothing but dry mounting really works. The hard part is keeping them flat enough to dry mount easily.

 

[dancqu]

A Good Thing Were Blotter Rolls

I've never found anything as good as the blotter rolls you
could buy through the 70's or maybe 80's. Even single weight
fiber papers dried nicely. Now I dry between screens, then
drymount. Nothing but dry mounting really works.
The hard part is keeping them flat enough
to dry mount easily.

Blotter rolls worked wonderfully. I used one in the 60s. The
blotter roll was composed of single faced corrugated board
and a heavy blotter paper; the two of them about 1' x 10'.

I've a home made flat version which substitutes polyester
sheeting material for the paper. No blotting. The corrugated
board is faced both sides. Drying is by evaporation. I call
it a corrugated board stack dryer. Dan

 

[Ektagraphic]

The iron seemed to work....and if it was put on steam it seemed even better. Is it at all possible that I am harming the print? Am I damaging the emulsion?

 

[Ektagraphic]

Freestyle sells big sheets of blotter paper....Could I make a roll myself?

 

[dancqu]

A Roll? Likely a Flat Bed

Freestyle sells big sheets of blotter paper....
Could I make a roll myself?

Likely a flat bed dryer would suit you better.
All that is needed is some corrugated board,
the blotter paper, and prints. Top off with
what you have for weighting the stack.

For even drying the board and blotters need
to be over size the prints by an inch or two.
I prefer polyester sheets to blotter because
polyester does not wet; does not blot.

From the bottom; corrugated board, blotter,
prints, blotter, prints, blotter, board. Print
emulsions should face each other. Continue
upward as needed. Weight on top. Slow,
cool, gentile, drying; a few days. Dan

 

[Ektagraphic]

I'll give that a try. Tonight the prints went directly from washing to the blotter book with weight on top and I'll take one out in the morning and see how it is.

 

[c.w.]

There are many ways to dry your FB prints as I'm sure you've read in this thread. If you want to get that super gloss without a special print dryer, look here: http://www.w7wwg.com/prints.htm. I've never tried it so if you do all I can say is good luck and post your results.

I just tested this on a blank sheet, and i have to say it works pretty flawlessly, i although i didn't follow the directions exactly.

I had already air dried the paper, so i soaked it in plain tap water for about 10 minutes to get it nice and pliable. I think putting some photo-flo in the water is a good idea, I'll have to try that next time. Then i took a squeegee to the back side of the print to get off the excess water, and put it on top of a piece of blotter paper. There were a couple little spots that had bubbles, so i squeegeed the front of the acetate to get those out. Took the whole thing, put it between two pieces of cardboard, put it under some books and waited two days. The surface is really really glossy. The only issue i had was the cardboard put a bit of a wave into the paper.

This is great, since i've tried putting glossy prints on glass a number of times only to have them stick badly. I'm trying it again right now on a few prints, only i'm using foam board instead of cardboard.

 

[sepiareverb]

When I remove prints from the dry mount press I often have wrinkles at the short edges. At times they have been wrinkled enough to become pleats. Happens on 1620 and 2024 paper most often, but does happen on 1114 from time to time. Anyone know of the cause?

 

[Bob Carnie]

Your humidity level in the room is too low, happens here in Toronto all the time.
You can try spritzing the back of the prints with distilled water before they go in the press , this will help kind of like ironing shirts.
I see you are from VT which should have the same humidity problems we have here in Toronto.
Either raise the humidity in your mounting room or wait for spring when the humity outside climbs.

When I remove prints from the dry mount press I often have wrinkles at the short edges. At times they have been wrinkled enough to become pleats. Happens on 1620 and 2024 paper most often, but does happen on 1114 from time to time. Anyone know of the cause?

 

[sepiareverb]

Thanks Bob. I'll get a sprayer to try.

 

[dancqu]

Uneven Rate of Drying

When I remove prints from the dry mount press I often have
wrinkles at the short edges. At times they have been wrinkled
enough to become pleats. Happens on 1620 and 2024 paper
most often, but does happen on 1114 from time to time.
Anyone know of the cause?

I was having the same problem, wavy edges, using my
corrugated board stack dryer. The prints were drying faster
at the edges. By increasing the print's overlap of separator
sheets and corrugated board the problem was eliminated.
All four edges very straight and smooth. Still that gentile
bend towards the emulsion side after setting out but I'm
working on that.

Are you mounting or just drying? Dan

 

[sepiareverb]

I generally just dry them, but do mount exhibition prints. Even on dry-mounting the pleats have appeared. I was wondering if newer papers required shorter wet times than those I grew up on.

 

[clayne]

I generally just dry them, but do mount exhibition prints. Even on dry-mounting the pleats have appeared. I was wondering if newer papers required shorter wet times than those I grew up on.

Nah, that isn't it. I've left FB paper in standing water for multiple days, summarily washed them afterward, dried, and pressed them without issues.

Have you checked the pressure settings on your press? Remember that the lever arm should be 45 degrees with the press loaded with mat board and cold.

http://www.jbhphoto.com/articles/dmadj/dmadj1.htm

 

[sepiareverb]

I didn't think it was wet time, I used to wash forever after long, long days printing- and now I'm only able to print for a five or six hour stretch, paper is wet half as long at most.

Not just my press, I've had it happen with my old, old press which finally gave up the ghost and the newer old one, plus a very nice and finely tuned giant one a friend had in town. I'm hoping the humidity is the answer. Just pressed a bunch of things Wednesday, so I've not have enough of anything for a week or two before firing up the press again.

Excellent link- thank you.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Not to be a wisenhiemer, know it all, but it is the dryness of the paper for sure, when you sprits the back it still may not be enough.
If you can make a humidity tent around your press or move the press to a room where you can pump up the humity, let the prints absorb all the good moisture in the air and your problem will most definately go away.
This is a common problem here in Toronto during the winter months.

I didn't think it was wet time, I used to wash forever after long, long days printing- and now I'm only able to print for a five or six hour stretch, paper is wet half as long at most.

Not just my press, I've had it happen with my old, old press which finally gave up the ghost and the newer old one, plus a very nice and finely tuned giant one a friend had in town. I'm hoping the humidity is the answer. Just pressed a bunch of things Wednesday, so I've not have enough of anything for a week or two before firing up the press again.

Excellent link- thank you.

 

[sepiareverb]

I may just press in the summertime??

 

[Bob Carnie]

We really control the moisture in the air before pressing.
I hate those pleats/kinks , they seem to travel a bit so trimming them out is sometimes not a option. We do leave large borders now on critical jobs so that if these nasties do occur we will trim.
Not sure how big your pressing room is , but a good humidifier and closed doors over night should do the trick for the days you want to press. Let the prints and slip covers sit in the room, then give the slip covers a quick press and you should be fine.

I may just press in the summertime??

 

[rberry65]

To flaten my fiber paper after it is dry, I lay it between pillow cases and iron it (low temp. setting).

 

[R gould]

With F.B. papers I peg them onto a line in back to back with a clothes peg at each corner,I find wooden pegs work best, and when they are dry they are almost flat, then a few hours between two mounting boards with some thing heavy on top flattens the print nicely,works all the time and has done for a number of years,no hassle,Try it,Richard

 

[Dave Krueger]

I have been playing around with Dan's corrugated board stack drying scheme. It just so happens that it is easy to get sheets of 18"x24" corrugated board where I work, so I'm using those for 16x20s. That puts the long side of the print within a half inch of the edge of the board, but the interfacing overhangs by an inch or two more. I only tried it with one print, but it dried within about a day and a half or so. Not bad. Quite flat with a slight linear curl up at the ends. There is a very small waviness but it's on the short edge of the print which actually gets better coverage by the board. I placed a piece of 3/4 inch ply wood on top as a weight. I did not use any forced air.

Since it seemed to work fairly well, I got a bunch more of the cardboard and will continue to use it. The interfacing is polyester and it's fairly thick (relative to some tissue-thin stuff I saw) and it didn't stick to the print or leave any kind of lint or marks in the emulsion. And it's pretty cheap. I have a mounting press, so I will flatten it in that to see if the slight waviness goes away completely after doing so, but for now it was flat enough to stick in a storage box with other prints (previously flattened with a press).

Up to now, I've just laid prints out to dry on a paper covered table and they invariably curled which I would remedy by pressing them in a dry mount press. I don't mind using the press, but like others have said, the press will sometimes not be able to completely eliminate the warping along the edges that is due to nonuniform shrinkage during the drying process. This exercise with Dan's technique is basically to see I can improve things enough to get rid of that occasional residual warping.

BTW, I use Ilford MGIV FB for these 16x20s. I don't think I've seen this residual warping on FB 8x10s.

 

[dancqu]

Wondering

This exercise with Dan's technique is basically to see
I can improve things enough to get rid of that
occasional residual warping.

BTW, I use Ilford MGIV FB for these 16x20s.
I don't think I've seen this residual warping
on FB 8x10s.

Wondering which way the flutes, corrugated channels,
run, length wise or width wise? Also when doing 8x10s
how many each layer? Dan

 

[Dave Krueger]

Dan,

The flutes run width wise. I have not yet used the corrugated stack for 8x10s. Most of my 8x10s are on RC unless I'm experimenting with new paper types. I think I would be inclined to only do two 8x10s per layer since I don't have a lot of over-hang with the cardboard.

This weekend I watched a documentary about Henri Cartier-Bresson and noticed, as he was thumbing through a bunch of prints (11x14, I think), they looked wavy along the edges.

 

[CBG]

I just tried the taping to glass flattening method earlier in this thread. It works wonderfully.

 

[ruilourosa]

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GLYCERINE