Slavich Grade 4 or Paper as nice for Lith

[Bob Carnie]

Hi Mike

thanks for this, I had conversation with Martin years ago , he was going to introduce me to Mike Spry if I ever came over, I hope the offer is still available I would love to meet
with you British Commercial Printers... I understand there is a lot a financial pressure on space over there right now to set up the Darkroom, Toronto is bad but London must be crazy, maybe Manhattan and Tokyo would be worse.

I basically said fuck it trying to find a large source of Foma ( I never used it), and purchased 4 boxes of Ilford Warmtone Matte .. I know this is quite lithable in my darkroom and my client will go for it.
SilverPrint in London basically got back to me today saying they have everything I need and willing to ship to Toronto , but I already committed to the other vendors but in future I think I will give them a go.. Do you use these people??

These days I am doing more Gum Bichromate over Palladium than any other process, but I am waiting for a large order of Ilford Ortho film in 20 inch x 100ft rolls to make digital negatives.
I used up two rolls lately making negs for different projects, Palladium, Gum over Palladium and Silver printing regular and lith... Very lovely results for all and since the film is real silver and not
inkjet the blocking power for direct silver contacts if fantastic.

I hope this new direction keeps me busy for the next 15 years...
Photo Bryan Helm- tri colour gum bichromate

Bob

 

[John Wiegerink]

Hi John

I think the sizes I wanted were not available and that forced the 2 month wait.

We tried this with another client a few months ago and my client paid for the slavich paper , but B&H could not meet the shipping date as promised, we then had to switch to
Ilford Art 300.

I cannot work as a printmaker for others like this , I find I am spending hours of time trying to find product ...

Yes, for me it's no problem, but I can totally understand your situation. Working for others time is important. Especially to the client!

 

[Bob Carnie]

Yes, for me it's no problem, but I can totally understand your situation. Working for others time is important. Especially to the client!

Hi John
I have over thirty different options for printing, stocking all is almost impossible, but it may be the solution, I think I won last nights 649 lottery.

The clients do not care how much but rather when, so I have solved the problem this time but each year it seems tougher.

 

[Lachlan Young]

I'm a little bit puzzled about this, as all my prints on this paper have basically no base tint whatsoever. I can't see any difference between them and Ilford Warmtone paper. The base definitely has a strong tint when it comes out of the box.

I've got a batch of TF2 fixer mixed up so maybe I'll try that with this paper. The base bleached really quickly in Ilford Rapid Fixer with my tests last night. I'm wondering if an alkaline fixer will make a difference.

532's not far off MGWT 24k, but the 13x series are definitively warmer - & I'm using Hypam. Only thing I can think of is developer doing something to the base tint, but even that's unlikely.

Either way, definitely one of my favourite emulsions - nothing quite like Fomatone for amazing flexibility in exposure & process.

 

[M Carter]

Hi Bob

Have you tried Fomabrom Variant 123? Does give a good lith result and has a soft textured base with a slight sheen. Bit like the old Agfa MCC Semi Matte surface.

I thought it was discontinued, but I think there are large quantities still about. Was prone to base fogging so not so great for conventional printing, but no such problems with lith. Do you know Martin Reed who used to own Silverprint? He's th UK importer for Foma. As Lachlan said, there is talk about producing it again but marketed as a lith paper. Contrasty example attached.View attachment 180783

Some important 123 info - yes, it was discontinued about 2 years back. But before it was discontinued, it was reformulated (the gelatine for all Foma papers changed). And one of the few currntly lithable papers in existence suddenly lithed terribly (it was also a great Bromoil paper and I can attest that the new formulation was very weak for Bromoil use). So buying old stock, you'll have to research some of Dr. Rudman's newletters, or ask on the FB lith group as to batch numbers.

Foma has re-introduced 123 this spring as a "Lith and Bromoil Paper", as sort of a test run. It's available in 8x10, supposedly we'll get 11x14 any day, and 16x20 this summer. If it sells well, they may continue production, they may do it as a seasonal offer... Freestyle wasn't sure.

Hopefully it will survive and in larger sizes. It was a flexible lith paper that didn't have extreme tonality but liths much better than Slavich (the "broken xerox machine" paper) and kept me from buying exorbitantly priced Ektalure in eBay crap shoots!

 

[aleckurgan]

So based on those codes the 132 and 532 should have an identical surface and base tint but a different type of paper base. I was looking under a loupe last night but I couldn't seem to spot any differences between the two types of paper.
Any idea what the "nature" base is supposed to be?

Natural paper base means no baryta layer (consequently no optical brighteners either).