Weak image on glass from Liquid light?

[Pipyr]

Hi all. I'm just starting to play around with liquid light, and am using it on glass. My first couple of plates were not coated thickly enough, from what I can tell. I really should have done a 2nd layer of emulsion, as they weren't coated evenly nor to the point of being opaque. So, I put a 2nd layer on the third sheet and went back about 6 hours later to print it. It is possible that I simply didn't expose for long enough (I exposed for one stop longer than with an old pack of illford RC MGIV, but I probably should have gone more like 3 stops more, considering the lack of reflection and that the paper is fairly fast), but I still have an extremely faint image with no blacks at all and a major lack of contrast. The emulsion is staying on the glass fine; I gave the glass a subbing layer and poured the emulsion on a couple of days later. I'm going to do some experiments over the rest of the week to see if it was just an exposure problem of if there is something more going on, but would appreciate any input from experience This negative is quite thin but I am not having a problem printing it on paper with the tonal range that I'm looking for. Suggestions?

 

[Patrick Robert James]

Pipyr, it has been quite a few years since I have used LL, but from what I recall, the regular stuff was rather weak and needed at least two coats, and that was on paper. They used to make something called AG+ that was rather nice on an absorbent paper, but that was a long time ago and I don't know if they still make it. I would have to assume that with glass, and it's lack of absorbancy, that you would need at least two coats of LL if it is the regular stuff. If you are intent on doing a lot of work in this area you may want to look at an emulsion that is more silver rich. I was on Photographer's Formulary the other day and seem to recall that they had an emulsion. I think Foma also has an emulsion. I could be wrong about these, though I wish you luck.