Print Drying (FB paper mainly)

[kb244]

Ever since I've ventured into using an old box of Agfa Brovira I've been messing with possible techniques on drying. My co-worker who used to be a darkroom technician for almost 30 years of his life used to tell me about how they had a large drying drum that would pretty much just feed paper with emulsion sticking out into it with heater and all and come out on a tray up top, and would then wet the back of each print lightly and put them in a cardboard press for flattening, would do about a thousand prints a day he said ( the ones in cardboard would be prepped and ready to go the next morning ).

Now of course I don't have access to something like that, and would be nice, but where would I put it . So I have a couple of ways in mind and some tried and some pondering.

1) The 16x20 Ferrotyping plate I purchased. My first attempt to use this did not go so well, the print stuck right to the face of it the next morning, and I had to spray it down with a shower head and slowly peel the print back off. Was basically informed that I needed not only to clean down the front ( and I guess clean was not 'clean' enough to him ) and that I needed to use a wax or polish of sort. He recomended using some pledge spray and wipe it down real good. Well the pledge worked for sure, but maybe a little too well as in about two hours time the print was starting to curl up at the edge and eventually just fell off the ferro plate, glossy as hell, but curled some (though bit better than it would have curled air dried ). One thing I did notice that the sheen of the glossy had a bunch of little microscopic sized dimples and such. And I'm told I need to polish it more, but not sure what non-photo-store remedy there is to polish down a sheet of ferro plate. (he used to have a guy that used to do all his ferrortyping polish for him, that would actually spend three days polishing a plate until not one dimple showed up in a test print, cuz they were using the plates and drums for production so...)

2) Cardboard Press. I've tried this, course I don't have the print completely dry before doing so, the test print ( which is no big deal because it was just an exposure test sheet ) had peices of the card board sticking to it. Was later informed that I should probably do the following order Cardboard -> Wax Paper -> Print (emulsion side facing wax paper) -> Cardboard -> Repeat with wax if more prints, and have them weighed down with least 20lb or so, possibly books or something. And was also told to expect this method to take at least a few days to dry. My thinking is I could buy one of those larger 10x10 or 12x12 Flower Presses from the hobby store which is basically two slabs of wood ( usually decorated with flower paintings) with four nuts and screw bolts on the corners, and you place pre-cut sections of cardboard inside of it with nonsticking sheets of wax paper or similar, and you use the bolts to tighten it down, and just use that instead of stacking some books, and probably just add on new prints to the top and tighten it down and at the end of the week or so pull out a couple of the oldest ones.

3) Air drying. Surefire way to do it, but the curling ... and I can't find Praxidol locally. I figured what I might do is if want to go the air dry method, I can use the flower press as above as a flattening method, and not worry about the wax paper as the print would already be dried just curled.

Or I can just use the 100 5x7 or 250 8x10 sheets of PolyContrast III RC I already have and not worry bout the beautiful brovira .

 

[Akki14]

I've heard air drying two prints hanging up and clipped together back to back helps keep the curling to a manageable level, then any other curling can be taken out by putting the dried prints under a stack of books. I'm not sure I'd like the wax from the waxed paper on my prints. Waxed paper also sounds counterproductive to drying.
I don't work with FB paper, though, so I could just be horribly wrong.

 

[dancqu]

Cardboard Press.

Corrugated board press is correct. Ventilator grade
corrugated at that. At this time I've 14 8x10s gently
drying in a press of that construction. Under $20 and
that includes hydrophobic polyester separator sheets.

Visit www.forestry-suppliers.com for materials. At that site
search for, plant presses . You are interested in the "Standard
Ventilators" . You may wish the driers also though I've opted
for the non-woven material above mentioned. At any fabric
store it is called interfacing.

I sponge dry then place in the stack. Ultra light weight,
Ultra compact, Ultra affordable, Ultra gentil. Dry, Flat, and
Clean in one operation. Used by conservators. Dan

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Karl,

I recently sold my Kodak 15TC because I no longer hot-glaze prints and if you want to dry them face out they need to be hardened or the blanket will stick. The same applies to flatbeds.

Nowadays I air dry and use a book press for flattening.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Jim Jones]

While in the Navy I dried FB prints in a bed. The prints were laid on the bed and covered with a sheet and a blanket. In a few hours they were dry and fairly flat. Storing them face to face and back to back in tightly packed boxes slowly flattened them further. I didn't try drying a double layer of back-to-back prints in bed, but that might work even better.

 

[Monophoto]

I air dry my FB prints on fiberglass screens. Squeegee them off, and the lay them out face down. I have a rack to stack my screens about 4" apart, and in that configuration they dry in about 10 hours. I can speed up the process by blowing air over the screens with a fan.

They won't be perfectly flat - to get that, I use a heat press.

 

[Slixtiesix]

Aftter processing, just wait about an half hour till the print has lost some wetness, then fix
it with strong (!!!) tape along the edges. Wait over night, you will get a perfect flat print.
The only con is that you have to cut it out and lose some paper along the edges.
That´s the way I did it until now.

 

[Mark_S]

I use a drum dryer, emulsion side out, and get prints which come out dry and flat fairly quickly. The dryer was not that expensive used, but since they are large, heavy and delicate, I kept my eyes open for one which was available locally, took a while before I found one, but it has worked out well.

 

[Bruce Osgood]

Like Mark S I got a drum dryer used from EBay (Pakonomy 18SS). I did have to wait a long time as they are heavy and shipping would be very high. I searched only within about 50 miles and found one 6 blocks from my house. Either it weighs 60 Lb and I paid $80 or the other way around.
I don't do glossy paper. Only semi matt and face the surface to the canvas. I use 130-F setting and the images come out flat and warm. I did have an incident of sticking once. I simply removed the canvas and washed it and sticking is history now.
The canvas belt did slip for a while but I covered a platen with a bicycle inner tube and that is now history.
Keep an eye out, when someone is ready to sell one they know it won't be easy to find a buyer.

 

[removed account4]

karl

you might just to to a hardware store and get some lathe and window screen
make some drying racks (i used a staple gun to put the wood together,
and the screen on the wood). when the prints are almost dry
( damp but not tacky) you can put them back to back/face to face
(if they are tacky add waxed paper to the face to face part )
and under a press ( heavy books, piece of countertop, or a
Dead Link Removed or a book press if you have one handy.
i bought a book press from gaylord years ago, and also bought one
from pottery barn of all places. i found a nipping press at a local consignment shop ...


good luck!

john