re-using old paper?

[darinwc]

I have a box full of old enlarging paper.. both color and BW i think.
Since its been sitting in a garage for years, it probably not any good.

But, since it is good quality paper and allready has a gelatin surface on it, I was wondering if it may be possible to add a 2nd coat of emulsion on it.

Has anyone tried to recycle/reuse/re-purpose old papers?

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

You should sell it to us carbon transfer printers...is it RC or Fibre-based?

 

[darinwc]

I'll check.

 

[Bob Carnie]

this paper is great for seasoning lith chemicals, room light it and put in the fresh developer, works great.

 

[Mike Wilde]

The colour paper you have likely has a dye overcoat that would need to be washed off prior to any overcoating effort.

Then there is the issue of fixing the under second coat silver out so the sub coating does not darken with time.

Ammonia will strip gelatine off of film base, and the same for paper.

I have taken actual b&w test prints and stipped the image off of them, washed the paper after the ammonia bath, and used the bayrta (sp) coated paper as the base to re-gelatine size and coat cyanotypes with.