Getting Fiber Based Paper Flat

[PVia]

Marco...

Squeegee the print on glass and dry face down on fiberglass screens.

[Andrew Kleinfeld]

I've never found anything as good as the blotter rolls you could buy through the 70's or maybe 80's. Even ingle weight fiber papers dried nicely. Now I dry between screens, then drymount. Nothing but dry mounting really works. The hard part is keeping them flat enough to dry mount easily.

[dancqu]

I've never found anything as good as the blotter rolls you
could buy through the 70's or maybe 80's. Even single weight
fiber papers dried nicely. Now I dry between screens, then
drymount. Nothing but dry mounting really works.
The hard part is keeping them flat enough
to dry mount easily.

Blotter rolls worked wonderfully. I used one in the 60s. The
blotter roll was composed of single faced corrugated board
and a heavy blotter paper; the two of them about 1' x 10'.

I've a home made flat version which substitutes polyester
sheeting material for the paper. No blotting. The corrugated
board is faced both sides. Drying is by evaporation. I call
it a corrugated board stack dryer. Dan

[Ektagraphic]

The iron seemed to work....and if it was put on steam it seemed even better. Is it at all possible that I am harming the print? Am I damaging the emulsion?

[Ektagraphic]

Freestyle sells big sheets of blotter paper....Could I make a roll myself?

[dancqu]

Freestyle sells big sheets of blotter paper....
Could I make a roll myself?

Likely a flat bed dryer would suit you better.
All that is needed is some corrugated board,
the blotter paper, and prints. Top off with
what you have for weighting the stack.

For even drying the board and blotters need
to be over size the prints by an inch or two.
I prefer polyester sheets to blotter because
polyester does not wet; does not blot.

From the bottom; corrugated board, blotter,
prints, blotter, prints, blotter, board. Print
emulsions should face each other. Continue
upward as needed. Weight on top. Slow,
cool, gentile, drying; a few days. Dan

[Ektagraphic]

I'll give that a try. Tonight the prints went directly from washing to the blotter book with weight on top and I'll take one out in the morning and see how it is.

[c.w.]

There are many ways to dry your FB prints as I'm sure you've read in this thread. If you want to get that super gloss without a special print dryer, look here: http://www.w7wwg.com/prints.htm. I've never tried it so if you do all I can say is good luck and post your results.

I just tested this on a blank sheet, and i have to say it works pretty flawlessly, i although i didn't follow the directions exactly.

I had already air dried the paper, so i soaked it in plain tap water for about 10 minutes to get it nice and pliable. I think putting some photo-flo in the water is a good idea, I'll have to try that next time. Then i took a squeegee to the back side of the print to get off the excess water, and put it on top of a piece of blotter paper. There were a couple little spots that had bubbles, so i squeegeed the front of the acetate to get those out. Took the whole thing, put it between two pieces of cardboard, put it under some books and waited two days. The surface is really really glossy. The only issue i had was the cardboard put a bit of a wave into the paper.

This is great, since i've tried putting glossy prints on glass a number of times only to have them stick badly. I'm trying it again right now on a few prints, only i'm using foam board instead of cardboard.

[sepiareverb]

When I remove prints from the dry mount press I often have wrinkles at the short edges. At times they have been wrinkled enough to become pleats. Happens on 1620 and 2024 paper most often, but does happen on 1114 from time to time. Anyone know of the cause?

[Bob Carnie]

Your humidity level in the room is too low, happens here in Toronto all the time.
You can try spritzing the back of the prints with distilled water before they go in the press , this will help kind of like ironing shirts.
I see you are from VT which should have the same humidity problems we have here in Toronto.
Either raise the humidity in your mounting room or wait for spring when the humity outside climbs.

When I remove prints from the dry mount press I often have wrinkles at the short edges. At times they have been wrinkled enough to become pleats. Happens on 1620 and 2024 paper most often, but does happen on 1114 from time to time. Anyone know of the cause?