Sloppy Borders and Mounting

[Ross Chambers]

I tried the art supply shop with the widest range in Sydney today; the young lady on the counter hadn't heard of it, the English guy in the office knew what I meant, but strongly doubted its availability. As "Flying Camera" says, it's just an opaque barrier, I can make that.

BTW this shop found what may have been the locally available last sheets of Arches Platine for me a while ago.

Regards - Ross

[2F/2F]

I have never had problems coating watercolor paper evenly right to the edge using a hake brush. I just put down some plastic and "paint" over the edges as if they were not there.

For mounting, I tack dry mount tissue to the back, then trim the print to the desired size with its attached tissue using a rolling cutter. Then it is ready for dry mounting to whatever compatible surface that you choose.

I have done cyanotype and van dyke brown this way.

[Lyn Arnold]

Ross, I have found some at Graphic Art Mart in Loyalty Rd, North Rocks. Their telephone number is 0288430299. I have not yet collected it so can't say definitely that it is the real thing.
They supply it in two widths - 610mm and 1220mm.

[Ross Chambers]

Thanks Lyn,

Sometimes I wonder whether half the joy of obscure processes it the detective work involved in tracking down materials, you are promoted to Detective Sergeant (Alternative).

Regards - Ross

[Lyn Arnold]

Thank you sir!

[Ironage]

I use a water color block and coat each sheet, then tare it from the block to let it dry. This way you are able to coat the paper without a boarder. Dick Blick sells Fabriano Artistico in 5x7 blocks.

[adamc]

Does the matieral have to be ruibylith, necessarily? Couldn't one use any thin opaque matieral?

[TheFlyingCamera]

you could use any thin opaque material. Rubylith is/was popular because it is visually transparent which is helpful when you're trying to cut a complicated mask, but opaque to UV light. Graphic arts shops used UV light sources much like the ones people use today for alt process printing. Since most of us are using this stuff to mask simple rectanglular shapes, any truly opaque material will suffice.

[Jeremy]

However the borders are really straggly and unpredictable, which is not a problem if it's assumed that the mat will cover them up, but that feels like I'm concealing sloppiness.

Concealing it from whom? Non-practitioners don't care (and many like seeing these "art marks") and those who practice the process understand.

I mat to cover the borders, but have slight borders so I can utilize printed registration marks on my digital negatives for multi-layer processes. I don't mat to show the border marks because they are an affectation that adds nothing but distraction to my image (much like sloppy 35mm borders), imo.

Coating the entire sheet may be an option now with cheaper processes like cyanotype (such as you're printing now), but this becomes a very wasteful practice if you move into the noble metals (like pt/pd).

Not even worrying about the borders also lets me focus on making more and better prints as opposed to obsessing over minutiae. Then again, I probably print more and more often than others and under deadlines so I lean towards streamlining the process where I can.

[Ross Chambers]

I'm not using a brush, seems more important to get better with a glass rod before I resume salt printing and incur the silver nitrate costs. (The nobility of pt/pd is way beyond my budget)

Hake brush and painters' low tack tape is no problem, but this setup gets in the way of glass rod coating.

I like the look of a key line plus border plus mat which i would use with conventional paper. Sort of a double mat.

I referred to "floating" the print and meant float mounting i.e. trimming and placing the print in the middle of a mat with the board behind it showing. I wonder if anyone may have tried this? Best archival adhesives?

(not quite like an example I saw at one of the more trendy galleries in Sydney, where the fibre based prints were stuck on a bit of board and left to curl at their own rate)

Regrds - Ross