[pure-silver] Re: Kodak Discontinuing All Black and White Paper

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <wolzphoto@xxxxxxx>
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 10:44 AM
Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Kodak Discontinuing All Black and 
White Paper


> Perhaps I'm sticking my head in the sand, but the 
> materials for platinum/palladium printing are still 
> available.  I believe that, at least for artists, B&W 
> materials will be available for the rest of my lifetime, 
> and probably for that of anyone else on this list.  Some 
> products will becoe scarce until another manufacturer 
> picks up a patent or such (AZO anyone?), but they will not 
> go away.
> Karl Wolz
>

  If there was ever a patent on Azo it expired before any of 
was born. Azo is a conventional silver chloride paper, its 
only unique feature is its very slow speed. Azo is the last 
of a once mighty group of slow papers meant for contact 
printing on printing boxes with powerful light sources. At 
one time Kodak made at least four general purpose contact 
printing papers, all other major paper manufacturers made at 
least one and usually two (cold and warm tone). While Azo 
has become a cult paper it really has no special quality.
  Good paper emulsions can be made and coated on a 
reasonably small scale but its impossible to exactly 
duplicate a particular emulsion because of the number of 
variables in emulsion making, although its possible to get 
close. Its likely that the emulsions of all of the long time 
papers have changed over the years simply because different 
people were making them and, in some cases, the equipment 
changed. Also small changes in the emulsion were made 
constantly by Kodak and others to improve it in some ways.
   There is no reason that a custom maker like Kentmere 
could not make a slow contact paper with quality similar to 
Azo, or even a superior paper. They make printing out paper 
(sold as Centennial in the US) which must be a very small 
scale operation so its possible that they could make a good 
contact paper is there is enough demand for it.
   BTW, because these papers are very slow the emulsions are 
likely quite stable. Stability varies all over the place 
(old Agfa papers are very stable, old Kodak papers much less 
so) so its likely that stashes of contact paper are still 
good.

---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

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