lith printing with Fotospeed

[lesd]

A few years back I had a go at lith printing using Kentmere Kentona (I guess this would have been the 'old' variety) with Fotospeed lith developer. Everything went fine and I got some nice prints.

Recently I have tried lith printing with the same developer (new batch) with some 'old brown' on Kentmere FB warmtone. I have seen some good looking prints in a magazine that were obtained using the Kentmere paper and champion novalith. I use the Kentmere WT a lot for 'conventional' printing. It took almost an hour to get anything visible on the paper and I gave up after 1.5 hrs with a very pale looking print. The paper had 3 x the normal exposure time under the enlarger.

I wonder if anyone has any suggestions as I would like to use this paper for lith if possible.

Les

 

[doughowk]

Suggest increasing developer strength (I use 25ml of both Fotospeed A & B per liter) . My snatch-times with Emaks & Kentona start at around 5 mins with fresh + old brown.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Agree with Doug. Some papers require stronger developer. I just finished a printing session with Ilford MGIV Warmtone, which is slow in lith, but with a 1+1+30 dilution (100ml A + 100ml B + 3000ml water) I got a finished print in 9 minutes.
Kentmere Fineprint VC can produce some very beautiful lith prints, gritty and grainy, but it's a very slow paper in lith.
- Thomas

 

[Rich Ullsmith]

Yes, the dilution and maybe you need a pinch of sulfite. A standard drug-store issue heating pad under the tray also helps speed things up.