Liquid emulsion paper coating - what did I do wrong?

[Dan Dozer]

So - I've done a lot of work with FOMA liquid emulsion, but decided to try to make my own. I tried Emulsion Formula 1 in Reed and Jones' Silver Gelatin book. Everything went fine in mixing the three solutions. After combining solutions A and B, putting it in ice water, then in the refrigerator, it was time to shred the emulsion. However, it was way to liquidy to effectively do it. I thought it wasn't set enough after 4 hours so let it sit over night, but it didn't really change anything. I couldn't really wash the mixture so I went ahead and mixed this gloppy mixture with Solution C, then heated and cooled the final mixture. Not sure how it will work. - have not had the chance to coat any paper yet.

I did notice that there are a couple of obvious typo errors in the book.

Any thoughts???

 

[removed account4]

Hi Dan
I haven't used any of the recipes in the Silver Gelatin book. I was warned by PE that some of the recipes were not accurate. That said, I have made a few different emulsions that can be found on thelightfarm.com, they are all working usable recipes, there is a treasure trove of information on her website and in Denise Ross' book (https://www.blurb.com/b/6465389-the-light-farm ). the whole book is previewed Denise is awesome !
I imagine you are shredding it to wash ... if it is going to be strictly a paper coating emulsion you don't need to wash it, because It will basically be washed when you develop the paper. Unless I plan on coating on glass I don't wash my emulsion anymore...
When I make sea water emulsion it is 6% gelatin. ( between the 80cc of water in the salt water and 20cc in silver nitrate ) ... do you have around 6%.?
I have also made emulsions that didn't set right away and I re-warmed it and cooled it a 2nd time ( like you said you did ) and it worked OK...
be careful reheating &c. it can cause fogging. too much gelatin might cause frilling and the emulsion will lift off the paper stretch and set back down again...

Not sure if my observations were helpful

Good luck
John

 

[Dan Dozer]

Thanks John - all good info. I have Denise Ross's other book - the Handmade Silver Gelatin Emulsion Print. She has several recipes in it. The Recipe I tried in the Silver Gelatin book is 10g of gelatin in about 740 ml of water. That seems like not very much to me - perhaps that is the problem. There is another solution with 40g more gelatin but that doesn't get added until after the shredding. I need to see if this works at all and if not, try another recipe.

FYI - my liquid emulsions are mainly for bromoils.

 

[removed account4]

Hi Dan

Im glad my observations were useful. Bromoils sound like fun

John