How old is too old

Frank,it is a RC coated paper,will the cyanotype work with that.?

Mike

fschifano said:

That's a very apt description. The paper is trashed now and isn't good for much. But here's an idea. You can fix out all the silver halides and then coat the paper with a cyanotype emulsion. Naturally, you'll only be able to make contact prints in sunlight or with a strong UV light source, but it's a fun thing to do. Cyanotype emulsions are available commercially, or you can make up your own.

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This is good advice, though I have not tried with RC. Fschifano did not mention the option stripping the original emulsion, however. If you have useless fiber paper for regular printing or lithing, you can actually let it soak for days, and entirely remove the emulsion. The base usually makes a very good quality (and free) substrate for hand-applied emulsions. If you were to go out and buy paper of similar quality, it would really cost you. I specifically like doing VDB prints on "reclaimed" fiber paper, since the warm tone of the old paper matches the warm tone of the VDB very well. Of course, you needn't do all this, since you can just use the back, but I prefer stripping the emulsion entirely. Perhaps this is just because it looks cleaner and dry mounts better, but I also think it takes the hand-applied emulsion better if pre soaked.

The EPA forced manufactures to remove lead and cadmium from their paper emulsions. The result was a greatly inferior product. This may account for the poor keeping quality of today's paper. I think this was one reason that Kodak got out of the paper market.

In the past, chloride papers had the longest shelf life and for chlorobronide it should depend on the Cl/Br ratio of the emulsion.

The use of organic antifoggants became popular after WWII when vast quantities of film and paper were dumped as surplus on the market. Far too much to be used in a timely manner.

Modern papers do not last at all. Older papers seem to be fine as they do not have the chemicals in them that promote instant aging thus saving the manufacturer the aging step before sale. My Medalist from exp. 1969 works ok. Later papers fog shortly after expiration. Freezing does not help or only slightly. This came right from Ilford rep and tech people before the big shake up maybe 10 years ago. They no longer work for Ilford.

I'll second that modern chlorobromide papers keep less well, it's a significant difference, also they aren't as flexible you can't get the same colour shifts. The last good chlorobromide papers were the old Record Rapid & Portriga. Kodak were the last major company to use cadmium which was in Ektalure until it was discontinued.

Ian