Salted Paper/Albumen recipes?

[Jim Noel]

I get the Strathmore 500 single ply from Jerry's Artarama.

I notice someone had problem with curling - I also had this with the 2 ply, bu tnot so much with the single.

Jim

 

[Nomad]

Pardon the resurrection of an old thread.

I'm about to start my first attempt at making albumen paper, and will probably use a recipe similar to that posted by cjarvis above...

* 12 eggs or enough for 500ml of egg whites
* 15-g ammonium chloride or table salt
* 15-ml distilled water
* 2-ml 28% acetic acid
* 15-g sodium citrate (optional preservative)
* 2 drops Kodak PhotoFlo (optional)

The one thing I don't have, however, is acetic acid. In an oldish book (1950s Dictionary Of Photography), there is a simpler recipe which uses rectified spirit instead of acetic acid. My understanding is that either alchohol or acid can serve to denature the albumen. Is that right? Can I replace the acetic acid with a suitable proportion of alchohol? I already have some rectified spirit - it's actually very strong Polish booze which is used for mixing up drinks. It is 95% alchohol, 5% distilled water (190 proof). From what I can find, rectified spirit is about 90% alchohol.

On a separate note, what is the difference between using Sodium Chloride and Ammonium Chloride? (I have both.) What does the PhotoFlo do? (That's wetting agent, yes?) And, what is the effect of using Potassium Dichromate for contrast 'control'? Control in what way? I'd like the paper to be contrasty - hoping to get something that is usable with a negative that is fairly normally exposed and developed (I expect to have to boost negative contrast in any case, but if I can keep the neg contrast within bounds that make them scannable on an Epson V700 flatbed, that would be good.)

 

[Jerevan]

If you haven't read http://albumen.conservation-us.org/library/monographs/reilly/index.html then this is a pretty thorough book. This is also another good one, even if I find his writing a bit long-winded and prone to blah-blah: http://www.christopherjames-studio.com/build/thebooksample.html

Sodium and Ammonium chloride gives different tones to the print.

 

[juan]

I've used Kodak Indicator Stop Bath, properly diluted, as well as glacial acetic acid with good results in albumen. Never added Photoflo.
Ammonium chloride gives me a redder tone, while sodium is more black.
juan

 

[Nomad]

Thanks for the links - still reading.

I'll have a closer look at the stop bath. Do you mean make it up to the normal dilution, and then use the same amount as given for glacial acetic acid?

I'm hoping to get a browny colour to the final prints - would a 50/50 mix of the two chlorides be worthwhile? I only have selenium toner, incidentally (Kodak rapid).

 

[Nomad]

No luck with the acetic acid - my stop is citrus based, and the local shops don't have an acetic based one in stock (and I won't get anything mail order before the holiday). I think I'll give it a try with the rectified spirit. Here's the recipe that uses this...

Albumen: 175ml
Chloride: 4g
Spirit: 6ml
Water: 50ml

Adjusted for 500ml of albumen, the quantities work out to...

Chloride: 11g
Spirit: 17ml
Water: 143ml

So, compared to the 'reference' recipe above, the salt is a bit weaker, the proportion of spirit is higher, and the distilled water seems much higher. The book later says to use a 13.5 to 14% solution of silver nitrate. It's hard to say whether the spirit should be reduced, since it may have a different effect compared to the acetic acid - I'm tempted to keep the proportion of that the same. The amount of water does seem a bit high - any comments on that? Tentative proposed recipe...


* 500ml albumen
* 6g ammonium chloride
* 5g sodium chloride
* 15ml distilled water (better to use this smaller amount?)
* 17ml rectified spirit
* 15g sodium citrate (or 11g to match the salt?)
* 2 drops Kodak PhotoFlo (optional)

Mixing the two chlorides to see if I get an in-between colour that tends towards a brown or sepia after Kodak rapid selenium toner. Also have potassium dichromate to add to the sensitiser.

Thoughts? (I realise there's an element of suck-it-and-see - just looking to eliminate any potential disasters.)

 

[Nomad]

Just made the albumen mix. I got 300ml of albumen, so I adjusted the proportions to suit. I went with the original amount of sodium citrate on the basis that the amount of preservative is to match the amount of albumen. Forgot to add the wetting agent, but I don't think that's critical. I found that the powders struggled to dissolve in the amount of water and spirit, so I just did what I could and bunged it into the albumen. The electric whisk turned it into meringue consistency in a couple of minutes or so. Now being left to settle.

 

[NedL]

Just adding a note to this old thread. I've got some single ply Strathmore 500 drawing paper on order ( with the vellum surface ), but a local store had the 2-ply plate finish bristol, so I made a test print on it yesterday. 10 years ago Jim Noel and David Goldfarb noted in this thread that the 2-ply has a tendency to curl. That happened to me as well, although it was not unmanageable, and was reasonably flat after sensitizing and drying taped to a piece of cardboard.

Salt print was not as dark as on some other papers, but I did not notice any fog or staining. Interestingly, the 2 ply separated during the wash ( I typically wash my salt prints for more than an hour, in this case about 2 hours ) so the final print was on a single ply. I don't have any opinion about the paper yet.

 

[Peter Schrager]

Thanks ned!!
Best peter