How to get precise borders while sensitizing a paper by hand

[scootermm]

kerik... youve got me interested. this may seem obvious but I'll ask anyways.
So you coat normally.... then do you lay the neg on the paper and then laydown the tape? with slight overlap onto the negative to block off the film holder edges? this seems like a great and easy way to mask rather than having to cut up a sheet of rubylith (although I guess the advantage for the mask cutout would be reuseable etc)
so its basically tantamount to creating a mask each time you make a print using the tape?

thanks.

[Keith Taylor]

I found that Goldenrod was not completely opaque to UV for pt/pd printing. During very long exposures (don't remember exactly, but ~20 minutes in a 40 watt BL box) I would get slight density appearing in the masked borders. Using a double thickness of Goldenrod eliminated it.

Kerik,
Yes, I've had that in the past too, and doubling the Goldenrod worked. Now, most of my exposures are in the 2-3 minute range and that's rarely ever a problem. I'm not sure if the vinyl alternative is denser or more opaque, but the paper is just so quick and easy to work with.

[Peter Schrager]

I did a workshop with Tillman Crane this summer and he had masks made up to
size on plastic sheets with a black border. You could try and have a sign place make them for you. He did a run for 20 or more at a time. Maybe a little more expensive but time saving in the end.....
Peter

[Kerik]

kerik... youve got me interested. this may seem obvious but I'll ask anyways.
So you coat normally.... then do you lay the neg on the paper and then laydown the tape? with slight overlap onto the negative to block off the film holder edges? this seems like a great and easy way to mask rather than having to cut up a sheet of rubylith (although I guess the advantage for the mask cutout would be reuseable etc)
so its basically tantamount to creating a mask each time you make a print using the tape?

thanks.

Matt,

No, I tape off the area before I coat, then remove the tape before I print. This is how I get clean black borders around my images. I tape off an area slightly larger than my negative. The blue masking tape will pull up fibers on softer/textured papers.