microwave magic

ok to speed up my work flow in the lab i dry my fiber base test strips in the microwave so i can see the dry down in a few seconds rather than have to wait ages. well today i decided something irregular I was drying down some Ilford Silk fiber base paper and i meant to type 30 seconds but i typed 3 minutes....the phone rang....test strip was microwaving and i didn't stop it.

when i got to the microwave the test strip was buckled and when i removed it i made a discovery the coating had separated form the paper.I now had a loose image which i could flex and crumple.

So I decided to check out if this was a one off or repeatable so i did it again, Same result. So I printed a whole 8x10" sheet and microwaved it for 8 minutes. same result. the whole 8x10 coating separated.

Im not sure if other Fiber coatings do this, or weather resin also does it. but for now that something i thought i would post as i found it interesting and this may creative application. also i noticed the coating is now translucent.

Throw one on your scanner, I think we all would love to see such a crumpled one.

i shall, sorry i just posted this as soon as i got it out of the microwave, I will print something of mine on the paper and scan it shortly.

Stephen Frizza said:

I printed a whole 8x10" sheet and microwaved it for 8 minutes. same result. the whole 8x10 coating separated.

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8-minutes!!? I burned a hole in my RC print after 3-minutes, at 1-minute the gloss finish wrinkles and the paper buckles. I think "this myth is busted." RCs blow drys in about 2 minutes so I don't bother with the microwave anymore.

Terry

Iwagoshi said:

8-minutes!!? I burned a hole in my RC print after 3-minutes, at 1-minute the gloss finish wrinkles and the paper buckles. I think "this myth is busted." RCs blow drys in about 2 minutes so I don't bother with the microwave anymore.

Terry

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I haven't tried it on an RC print, and im very curious Why were you microwaving RC paper?

Why? To see what would happen. I heard that the waver would make your whites "pop." It was more like poof, up in smoke.

hahahahaha. thats as good a reason as any, your awesome.

Sounds like you have the answer to the polaroid image transfer in FB. Have you tried rewetting and floating it onto a sheet of watercolor paper?

no and I appologise for not having yet posted a sample, the image i did it with earlier was a clients image i printed in the lab. when i get a moment i will post a sample with an image of my own. i just got ultra excited and so i posted this thread. sorry

When I have overcooked (Varycon, Polywarmtone, Adox VarioClassic, Ilford MGIV) I have done nothing more than burn a hole in the paper. Perhaps it is paper brand specific, or perhaps it is your particular microwave. One could, I suppose , try to float an emulsion of using a more even source of heat.....

I wanna see this result! Show it, show it! Is this going to be a nice way to work with paper negs?!

the one problem i have noticed is the plastic bumbs of the silk surface melt and become a smoother gloss.

What plastic??
Or do you mean the gelatine structure?


Are there residues of the baryta adhering to the gelatine layer?

JBrunner said:

When I have overcooked (Varycon, Polywarmtone, Adox VarioClassic, Ilford MGIV) I have done nothing more than burn a hole in the paper. Perhaps it is paper brand specific, or perhaps it is your particular microwave.

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I bet it's the microwave oven. They vary quite a lot in the evenness of their microwave distribution. With some, if you put in an even layer of something (say, pre-cut cheese slices), you'll find some are stone cold while others are bubbling away. With other microwaves, the distribution is much more even.

Using a rotating platform sometimes helps. If you've got an oven without one, I know that they exist (or did exist) as add-on things. I've got one in mine that you rotate and then it slowly rotates back, like a wind-up toy.

What power intensity (watts)?

This sounds like the emulsion lift you can do with polaroids and warm water. It would be super-cool if you could do the same thing, emulsion on watercolor-paper that's a bit crumbled looks great!