[pure-silver] Re: blotter books

  • From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 09:29:48 -0700


----- Original Message ----- From: "Shannon Stoney" <sstoney@xxxxxxx>
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 6:54 AM
Subject: [pure-silver] blotter books


I was looking at blotter books in a catalog the other day. The catalog says, "A must for flattening fiber prints." Has anybody tried this? I usually dry my prints on screens, and then flatten them under books, but they don't look that flat and I have to take them to a school with an ancient drymount press to get them really flat. But that old drymount press will barely get hot any more, so I am looking for an alternative. Do blotter books really flatten fiber based prints?

--shannon

I don't know if blotter books are made any more. I used them many years ago. The book has blotter pages interleaved with impervious paper that, in the old books, looked like waxed paper but was something else. The idea is that the blotters absorb moisture from the support but the emulsion is dried more slowly to equalize the shrinkage. Usually on puts books or other weights on the book. It takes some time to dry. Blotters were also sold in rolls, similar to the arrangement with the books but with a corrugated cardboard stiffener layer.
One problem with photo blotters is that they pick up whatever is in the prints so if an insufficiently washed print is dried the blotter will absorb some fixer and transfer it to subsequent prints.
Drying on screens has an effect similar to the blotter: when the prints are dried with the emulsion against the screen it prevents it from drying out too fast and tends to prevent excessive curling (works some of the time). I've found that the most effective way of flattening prints is to use a dry mounting press on them. The print is placed with the support side against an absorptive paper layer, such as thick Kraft paper, and the emulsion side covered with release tissue. This also causes the support side to dry out but prevents too much moisture loss from the emulsion side. When the print has been in the press for perhaps a minute or two, the entire sandwich is taken out and placed under a flat weight to cool. Prints flattened this way stay flat.
I usually dry fiber prints on screens or by just hanging them. I hang them using clothes pins at the corners with additional pins on the bottom for weight. This seems to work as well as any of he fancier methods. I think the key is to dry the prints slowly enough to keep allow the support and emulsion sides to maintain some degree of equilibrium.


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