[pure-silver] Re: Sistan Saga

  • From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 19:01:15 -0700


----- Original Message ----- From: "Adrienne Moumin" <photowonder2010@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 6:02 PM
Subject: [pure-silver] Sistan Saga


I just learned an interesting, if puzzling, lesson about drying prints face down on racks. Or at least I'm assuming that's the solution when using Sistan?

When I began to remove the the (face up) prints, each had a small pool of orange liquid in one of the print "depressions" (a low spot) which hadn't yet dried from 24 hours ago! One print which apparently had a dried one of these in the white border had a circular orange stain. And one with a large shadow area has some sort of dulling on part of it. The few matte finish prints were fine. (Of course the majority of this batch were on glossy paper...)

An interesting observation: most prints dry bowl-like, with the edges curled. The Sistan-treated prints dried in ramdom high & low spots, revealing (I guess) the uneven dry time.

I suppose I will try to rescue the prints by washing, and experiment on a few by re-treating & drying face-down.

Stay tuned for the next exciting chapter of the darkroom follies!

-Adrienne Moumin

Sistan treated prints and films _must_ be squeegeed. I usually lay the prints on the bottom of a flat tray, a sheet of glass or plastic or any smooth clean surface will do. I find rubber squeegees leave marks so I just sponge them off. This also helps the prints dry faster.
Generally, prints curl toward the emulsion side because the emulsion shrinks up after processing. Unprotected paper base (fiber base) also shrinks after being soaked and dryed but the relative amount of shrinkage is less than the emulsion so there is a net curl. Drying on screens with the emulsion facing the screen tends to slow down the drying of the emulsion so that the difference in shrinkage is less. Fiber prints should be dried slowly to minimize curls and to avoid edge frilling. The prints will not be smoothly flat after drying. I also use a dry mounting press to flatten prints. This seems to work very well and the flattening seems to be permanent.
Agfa warns about staining from an overdose of Sistan in its instructions. Instructions are included in the all-purpose PDF datasheet on Agfa chemicals on their web site. Note also that the instructions for diluting have changed over the years. I have a stash of Sistan so can compare labels with each other and with the current recommendations.

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

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