What's so wrong with FB print dryers?

thomsonrc · Sep 18, 2009

Hi

Having started to use FB papers I have followed the general advice not to use a print dryer (i.e. the ones with the canvas covers). However I just got one free and I'm wondering why they are considered unsafe? I know the canvas could become contaminated by fixer, but so could the fiberglass screens I was recommended to use. Whats the difference?

Ian Grant · Sep 18, 2009

They build up contaminants, I have a lot of experience of using them from the 70's, the canvas begins to smell of Hypo

The heat drives the residual compounds into the canvas, dry natuarally they stay in the paper, that's a simplistic over-view. However it happens even with well washed prints.

Ian

RalphLambrecht · Sep 18, 2009

How about covering the print with another lose sheet of canvas before closing the dryer? This sheet can be cleaned and replaced on a regular basis.

Nicholas Lindan · Sep 18, 2009

There is nothing wrong with heated driers, they are simply unfashionable. AA used screens -> screens are 'in'. If AA had a big Pako drier then screens would be out.

Ian Grant · Sep 18, 2009

You need to "smell" a hot rotary glazer Then you'd know why why we stopped using them.

They aren't that good for drying non glazed prints anyway regardless of other concerns.

Ian

Sirius Glass · Sep 18, 2009

Ian Grant said:
You need to "smell" a hot rotary glazer Then you'd know why why we stopped using them.

They aren't that good for drying non glazed prints anyway regardless of other concerns.

Ian

What is so wrong with FB print dryers? Absolutely nothing!

Rotary drum dryers:

1) If the unit smells, then the heat is to high. This in not rocket science. Also if the heat is too high the prints will have a tendency to curl. Occasionally cleaning out any collected dust or dirt that got inside is a good idea.

2) Most staining can be avoided by properly rinsing prints. By the way, properly rinsed prints last longer and do not become stained when dried either using a print dryer or screens. This should not be a scientific breakthrough.

3) When the apron starts getting too stained, replace the apron.

4) I mount my prints behind glass. That keeps dust and sticky fingers off. If it is going to be hung on a wall it should be glazed or "framed" using Plak-It.

Steve

Photo Engineer · Sep 18, 2009

Steve;

I agree totally with your comments about dryers. Having been in rooms filled with them running 3 shifts / day, I found no real problem with fixer odor if the prints were well washed. Staining was a typical problem mostly due to not using distilled water as a final rinse. We used tap water and the salts built up.

And, the odor was certainly due to an overly hot dryer. Keep it just hot enough so that a print releases from the drum when it comes out. They should just pop as they reach the "in basket ".

PE

Ian Grant · Sep 18, 2009

1. The fixer smells not temperature related

2. We used our glazer for RC prints the fixer still built up despite over washing.

3. We washed the aprons regularly

4. What's hanging a print behind glass got to do with how it's died ?

I did use my glazer to dry FB prints without passing them through the cycle, I turned the speed to the minimum placed the prints the wrong way to the drum (base first) then part dried & repositioned a few times until dry. But it was time consuming.

Ian

Photo Engineer · Sep 18, 2009

Putting the emulsion side to the canvas risks two things. 1. Sticking the emulsion to the canvas if the paper is soft. 2. Picking up stains from the canvas if it is getting dirty.

And, BTW, a poorly washed print of any type smells pretty bad when it gets warm enough and it gets worse as temperature goes up. And, a glazer should not be used for RC unless the temperature is very very low or you risk blisters on the emulsion side due to water evaporating too fast with nowhere to go. This is similar to dry mounting an RC print at too high a temperature. I know this from working on the initial release specs for both drying and mounting Kodak RC papers.

PE

AshenLight · Sep 18, 2009

I have one that I've been using for years. Other than occasionally washing the canvas (I use sodium carbonate) and keeping the plates clean that's about all the maintenance it seems to need. I totally agree with everyone who stated that over-heating causes a bit of an odor, but I usually run the dryer at about half of its maximum.

Ash

Sirius Glass · Sep 18, 2009

Ian Grant said:
4. What's hanging a print behind glass got to do with how it's d[r]ied ?

If I am going to hang a print, I will mount it and put it behind glass or Plak-It it.

I think there is a difference in definition for glazing as I mean it and how you mean it. Two people separated by a common language.

steve

Dave in Kansas · Sep 18, 2009

I often leave my driers unplugged and just let the prints air dry under the canvas. It will take them all night to dry, but one dryer is fairly flat and prints will dry more flat in it that way. I think there is something wrong with the heat switch anyway. It always seems to be too hot even at it's coolest setting.

Dave

thomsonrc · Sep 18, 2009

Ian Grant said:
They build up contaminants, I have a lot of experience of using them from the 70's, the canvas begins to smell of Hypo

The heat drives the residual compounds into the canvas, dry natuarally they stay in the paper, that's a simplistic over-view. However it happens even with well washed prints.

Ian

But I thought if I follow the guidance for 'archival' washing that there wont be any fixer left in the prints to contaminate the canvas?

Photo Engineer · Sep 18, 2009

thomsonrc said:
But I thought if I follow the guidance for 'archival' washing that there wont be any fixer left in the prints to contaminate the canvas?

Unless you rinse well in distilled water, the contaminants in tap water will eventually stain the canvas. This stain can sometimes transfer to a drying print.

PE

john_s · Sep 18, 2009

I read that the canvas can be cleaned of thiosulphite using diluted hypochlorite (pool liquid chlorine, not household bleach as it contains unknown other ingedients). This can't be done too often because it eventually damages the fabric. But there are other thiosulphate-related chemicals that might not respond to this, I suppose (I mean the stages of argento-thio-whatever that are produced in fixing and that are hard to wash out of paper and hence, presumably, cloth).

Other advice i've read is to clean gelatin from the cloth with an enzyme cleaner. (Are these now considered environmental hazards?)

On balance, the advice above to clean with carbonate looks good to me.

I have stopped using my flat bed dryer most of the time, but I use it occasionally. Prints that I dried on a well-used second hand dryer in the 1970s are still fine, and that was before I had heard of "achival washing". But I was fussy about fresh fixer, and that undoubtedly has helped.

Ian Grant · Sep 19, 2009

Sirius Glass said:
If I am going to hang a print, I will mount it and put it behind glass or Plak-It it.

I think there is a difference in definition for glazing as I mean it and how you mean it. Two people separated by a common language.

steve

What we call glazing in terms of photography you call ferrotyping. Actually you can squeegee a FB Prints against a sheet of glass the idea being it dries glazed and comes away once dry. But the term glazed just means drying to a glass like gloss finish.

Ian

Sirius Glass · Sep 19, 2009

Ok, now we are on the same page [print?]. I use the drum dryer and canvas to emulsion and it does not look as good as ferrotyping. I was told by the seller not put prints facing the steel drum as the prints will stick and be very hard to remove without scratching the drum. I verified that for myself. The place that sold the drum apron to me said that to dry prints facing the drum, I needed fixer with hardener. They recommended not doing that because they felt the trouble was not worth it.

If I brought ferrotype plates, I would have to buy many of them and I would have a problem drying all my prints at once. More so because prints cannot stay wet for long periods of time without risking emulsion damage.

What do you recommend? I am willing to try ferrotyping [glazing] again, if there are other ideas that I have not tried.

Steve

Photo Engineer · Sep 19, 2009

Steve;

We used to have a basket filled with prints in water sitting below the dryer. Along with that were rolls of prints up to 500 ft long. The rolls were reeling out of the basket in water onto the drum and along side these strips we placed prints face up (glossy) or face down (matte or other). When the drum rotated, the prints came off the drum with no problem unless they were too soft or the drum was dirty.

We used a hardening fix and a ferrotype polish on the drum to insure good release. If a print stuck, we let the drum have another goround with the print to see if it loosened up. If not, we wet the back of the print and let it try again. If this didn't work, we finally let the print go to the end of the day and brought that print to the front and just wet it down well. It always released.

The keys? Hard prints and clean drum. No RC.

PE

Ian Grant · Sep 20, 2009

Steve, when people glazed prints (ferrotype) there were glazing solutions available, these used exotic and foul smelling things like ox-gall, or spermateci (bulls sperm) or more normal beeswax.

I can remember buying Paterson glazing solution that was Ox-gall, once a print was dry and the surface glazed they just popped off the plate. Ilford & Kodak etc used to make & market large commercial glazers which went at the end of commercial B&W D&P lines, the smell must have been terrible

Just looking at a photo of a Kenprint 600 (Ilford), the drum alone must have been 4ft in diameter, temperature control was to +/1°C and it glazed continuous rolls of double weight paper.

Before RC papers became widely available in the mid to late 70's commercial labs used to glaze all their glossy prints B&W and Colour.

Ian.

Philippe-Georges · Sep 20, 2009

I only use the glazing press for flattening the FB print once they are dry.
I dry the prints, face down, on a polyester screen [the one used in fly doors on the veranda (not the doors...)]. When the print is dry, then I put it for about 1 to 2 min. in the warm (not hot) glazing press face up and protected, against the dirty cotton cloth, with a sheet of the famous acid free blotter paper I once bought from ILFORD, a long time ago.
BTW, it is a pity that ILFORD does no more sell that blotting paper, over here, it is difficult to find an alternative...

Ian, I have read that Paul Strand used to 'glaze' his prints wit a kind of varnish that was some mixture of celluloid and ether, if I can recall it correctly.

Philippe

Ian Grant · Sep 20, 2009

leicam5 said:
Ian, I have read that Paul Strand used to 'glaze' his prints wit a kind of varnish that was some mixture of celluloid and ether, if I can recall it correctly.

Philippe

Old copies of BJP Almanacs etc have a few formulae for print and negative varnishes, modern papers have a much nicer air dry finish compared to some of the older papers, particularly if you steam them.

I suspect that people have got used to the Glosss of RC prints which isn't that close to the high gloss of a "Glazed" (Ferrotyped) FB print. The highest gloss I've seen with RC paper was Kenthene (Kentmere, Kodak, Ilford & Agfa papers were some way behind.

Ian

Photo Engineer · Sep 20, 2009

Ian Grant said:
Steve, when people glazed prints (ferrotype) there were glazing solutions available, these used exotic and foul smelling things like ox-gall, or spermateci (bulls sperm) or more normal beeswax.

I can remember buying Paterson glazing solution that was Ox-gall, once a print was dry and the surface glazed they just popped off the plate. Ilford & Kodak etc used to make & market large commercial glazers which went at the end of commercial B&W D&P lines, the smell must have been terrible

Just looking at a photo of a Kenprint 600 (Ilford), the drum alone must have been 4ft in diameter, temperature control was to +/1°C and it glazed continuous rolls of double weight paper.

Before RC papers became widely available in the mid to late 70's commercial labs used to glaze all their glossy prints B&W and Colour.

Ian.

Interestingly enough, we never routinely used a glazing solution, and if we did, the Kodak version had little or no odor.

As for color prints, up to the mid 60s, color prints had instructions in all process data sheets to not ferrotype. The print had to be dried face down and then rewet in stabilzer and redried face up. Then, in the mid 60s, this changed.

In fact, this warning was so strong that at the Cape, they refused to ferrotype any Ektacolor print whasoever. I demonstrated the rewet and redry to them and they warned me that a new drum would come out of my pay, but it worked. They still refused to ferrotype Ektacolor.

PE

Ian Grant · Sep 20, 2009

When did they begin using PE papers Ron ?

The first B&W PE (Polythene Encapsulated) as opposed to RC (Resin Coated) papers I used were un-named ex Government/Military surplus (UK) in the early 70's, it was available in 100ft rolls or sheets. It was probably made by Ilford as all the films were FP3/HP3 and then FP4/HP4.

Ian

Martin Reed · Sep 20, 2009

We've got a 24" Kodak rotary glazer in the lab (Downtown Darkroom). It looks magnificent, and as long as we have space we'll never part with it. But it's never used, we couldn't sell anything that had been round it against the canvas as an archival FB print. Instead we air dry on fibreglass screen racks and flatten between good quality boards in a mount press.

The closest we might ever come is if something needs to be dried in a hurry, it's possible to speed the process up by putting the print between blotters & hand winding it round a few times before finishing on racks.

Photo Engineer · Sep 20, 2009

Interesting comments, both.

Our PE papers were in use in the 50s in the military. I used them in the far east in 1959. However, limited use of RC began in about 1965 and the conversion of color to all RC was in the late 60s.

It is interesting to note that many archival prints were ferrotyped individually. Old dryers were heated drums with two canvas sheets that rolled up into the drum and let the prints dry internally with air and heat. The excess heat heated ferrotype plates which sat on top of the heated drums. Select prints were then squegeed to the ferrotype plate and laid on top of the drum to dry. They would pop off when dry to give exquisite glossy prints.

This method was being taught and in-use at Brooks in the 60s when I visited my uncle there while he was a student.

PE

What's so wrong with FB print dryers?

thomsonrc

Ian Grant

RalphLambrecht

Nicholas Lindan

Advertiser

Ian Grant

Sirius Glass

Photo Engineer

Ian Grant

Photo Engineer

AshenLight

Sirius Glass

Dave in Kansas

thomsonrc

Photo Engineer

john_s

Ian Grant

Sirius Glass

Photo Engineer

Ian Grant

Philippe-Georges

Ian Grant

Photo Engineer

Ian Grant

Martin Reed

Advertiser

Photo Engineer

What's so wrong with FB print dryers?

Advertiser

Advertiser

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency