Joy Goldkind Bromoil clip

[Jerevan]

The dichromate bleach removes the silver and tans (hardens) the gelatine proportionally. Ferri only removes the silver, as far as I know.

[Marco B]

The dichromate bleach removes the silver and tans (hardens) the gelatine proportionally. Ferri only removes the silver, as far as I know.

Ok, that would indicate a ferri bleach might be unusable in bromoil printing, and thus also why there are almost no references on the net, as the tanning seems to be a vital process in the creation of the "matrix".

Anyway, I am not afraid of a bit of experimenting, so I might just give it a try using the ferri based bleach I have and see what happens on a test sheet.

Marco

[Marco B]

Another question that came up after reading several articles about bromoil on the internet:

I see that all articles mention a drying stage of the paper after bleaching and washing / clearing the print of the bleach. Now on the other hand, the paper needs to be re-wetted before inking, with some articles mentioning a prolonged soak of up to 20 minutes before inking.

What is the use of drying the paper, if it will be re-soaked in water for such long times before inking? Surely, even with a few minutes, the paper and gelatine will be almost fully saturated with water, so why not continue with inking directly after bleaching and washing?

Or is the drying process done to facilitate the hardening / tanning process of the matrix, so as to have a more robust matrix better able to withstand the subsequent inking process?