Making Carbro Prints today...? Carbro Paper..?

[Philipp Grewenbach]

Hello all, I have recently stumbled upon the carbro process, and would like to try it, but have some questions, as the resources seem to be very rare... Perhaps some of you can help!

Just for clarity, I am not talking about color-carbro, but only black-and-white carbro from a single sheet of silver bromide paper, unto a black pigment tissue.
I used to make carbon transfer prints, but had difficulties in getting decent quality large negatives. So just out of curiosity, I thought enlarging onto paper and "transfer printing" that sounds good.

My main question is: What paper should I use for enlarging and then printing unto the tissue?
Is there any photographic bw paper available today with high enough bromide amount? Which paper is best?

I've read that the print on the bromide paper should be about half a stop darker than "normal"... Can anyone confirm or refute this?
How about contrast? Should I make the contrast as desired in the final image, or rather something like gradation 0 because of carbons long curve?

I used to sensitize my carbon transfer prints with 4% potassium dichromate solution brushed on, can I do the same for carbro or do I need a different percentage?

Any help would be highly appreciated, thanks in advance!

 

[revdoc]

In case you don't already know, there's a how-to carbro guide on Sandy King's carbon group over at groups.io. The file is called Carbro_Modernized.docx.

I'm not sure how viable the process is with modern, supercoated papers. I suspect you'll just have to try different papers until you find one that works. Or coat paper with a liquid emulsion and use that... I know some people do that for bromoil, which has similar paper issues to carbro.

If you try it, report back here on how it goes. I'd like to try it myself, some day.