Usage of fiberglasss print drying rack

for fiberglass print drying rack, should one put the prints on it with
emusion side down or up? thanks.

In article
,
Steven Woody wrote:

for fiberglass print drying rack, should one put the prints on it with
emusion side down or up? thanks.

Some people will say that depends on the paper type; fiber or RC.

I use an RC dryer and before that a hair dryer. So I only use the
screens for Fiber. I also know people that dry fiber face down. People I
respect their work: However I have always used face up, I squeegee the
prints and they are dry but morning, without water spots and screen
marks which if you fail to remove enough water may appear on the paper.

--
Reality is a picture perfected and never looking back.

On Mar 5, 1:00 pm, ____ wrote:
In article
,
Steven Woody wrote:

for fiberglass print drying rack, should one put the prints on it with
emusion side down or up? thanks.

Some people will say that depends on the paper type; fiber or RC.

I use an RC dryer and before that a hair dryer. So I only use the
screens for Fiber. I also know people that dry fiber face down. People I
respect their work: However I have always used face up, I squeegee the
prints and they are dry but morning, without water spots and screen
marks which if you fail to remove enough water may appear on the paper.

--
Reality is a picture perfected and never looking back.

ok, thanks for the information.

In article ,
____ wrote:
In article
,
Steven Woody wrote:

for fiberglass print drying rack, should one put the prints on it with
emusion side down or up? thanks.

Some people will say that depends on the paper type; fiber or RC.

I use an RC dryer and before that a hair dryer. So I only use the
screens for Fiber. I also know people that dry fiber face down. People I
respect their work: However I have always used face up, I squeegee the
prints and they are dry but morning, without water spots and screen
marks which if you fail to remove enough water may appear on the paper.

I have always dried fiber face-down on screens. I agree that if you
squeegee or chamois all the water off first, it doesn't really matter
which side up you do it.

When I was in school we often had to produce large numbers of good
quality prints very fast. At peak periods we would prevail upon the
other students mixing the fixer in the large group darkrooms to omit
the hardener so we could cut wash times a bit if we were toning. It
wasn't uncommon in this environment to see prints damaged in most ways
you can imagine, for example by being slid into the rack of drying
screens face-down too vigorously, resulting in scuffing of the emulsion
surface, or by being squeegeed with a squeegee with some grit or crud
on it, resulting in discrete surface scratches.

Either way you can screw up but I've always found it easier to work with
less stuff to keep clean, so I do it the way I don't have to squeegee
the emulsion side of the paper -- no squeegee to wipe down for dirt
first. If I dry face-up without squeegeeing I get water spots that do
not always come out easily when I flatten the paper in my dry mount
press, so face-down it is.

--
Thor Lancelot Simon

"The inconsistency is startling, though admittedly, if consistency is to
be abandoned or transcended, there is no problem." - Noam Chomsky

On Mar 4, 6:01 pm, Steven Woody wrote:
for fiberglass print drying rack, should one put the prints on it with
emusion side down or up? thanks.

The traditional way is to dry fiber prints emulsion side down.
There is a rational to this. The idea is that curling of prints is
mostly due to the emulsion shrinking more than the support. This
shrinking is minimized by slowing down the drying. That happens when
the emulsion is against the screen which limits the contact with the
air. Old style screens used cheesecloth which held some water making
the emulsion side dry even more slowly.
Since the support side of RC paper is dimensionally stable this
drying scheme is not needed although screens may still be convenient
for drying. RC is usually dried emulsion side up.
The differential drying gotten with a screen is also the reason
blotter books and rolls have a non-permeable sheet, waxed paper in the
very old ones, interleaved with the blotters. The idea is to put the
emulsion against the sheet so that the drying takes place mostly from
the support side minimizing curling.

Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA

On Mar 5, 9:19 pm, Richard Knoppow wrote:
On Mar 4, 6:01 pm, Steven Woody wrote:

for fiberglass print drying rack, should one put the prints on it with
emusion side down or up? thanks.

The traditional way is to dry fiber prints emulsion side down.
There is a rational to this. The idea is that curling of prints is
mostly due to the emulsion shrinking more than the support. This
shrinking is minimized by slowing down the drying. That happens when
the emulsion is against the screen which limits the contact with the
air. Old style screens used cheesecloth which held some water making
the emulsion side dry even more slowly.
Since the support side of RC paper is dimensionally stable this
drying scheme is not needed although screens may still be convenient
for drying. RC is usually dried emulsion side up.
The differential drying gotten with a screen is also the reason
blotter books and rolls have a non-permeable sheet, waxed paper in the
very old ones, interleaved with the blotters. The idea is to put the
emulsion against the sheet so that the drying takes place mostly from
the support side minimizing curling.

Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA


Thanks for the information. It's good!

On Mar 5, 5:19*am, Richard Knoppow wrote:

The differential drying gotten with a screen is also the reason
blotter books and rolls have a non-permeable sheet, waxed
paper in the very old ones, interleaved with the blotters.
The idea is to put the emulsion against the sheet so
that the drying takes place mostly from the support
side minimizing curling. Richard Knoppow


Wondered about those "non-permeable" sheets. My blotter
book was set aside years ago in favor of a corrugated board
stack dryer. Although the prints do come out of the dryer with
nothing more than a hint of emulsion side curl they do over
time, unweighted, develop some more emulsion side curl.

As it is the stack is built by alternating layers of board,
hydrophobic sheets, and prints; a same sheeting each
side of the prints. Perhaps I should be using a less
permeable sheet emulsion side for long term
flatter prints. Dan

wrote in message
...
On Mar 5, 5:19 am, Richard Knoppow wrote:

The differential drying gotten with a screen is also the
reason
blotter books and rolls have a non-permeable sheet, waxed
paper in the very old ones, interleaved with the blotters.
The idea is to put the emulsion against the sheet so
that the drying takes place mostly from the support
side minimizing curling. Richard Knoppow


Wondered about those "non-permeable" sheets. My blotter
book was set aside years ago in favor of a corrugated board
stack dryer. Although the prints do come out of the dryer
with
nothing more than a hint of emulsion side curl they do over
time, unweighted, develop some more emulsion side curl.

As it is the stack is built by alternating layers of board,
hydrophobic sheets, and prints; a same sheeting each
side of the prints. Perhaps I should be using a less
permeable sheet emulsion side for long term
flatter prints. Dan

Worth a try. The idea of these things, especially the
blotter rolls, is that there is some air circulation at the
back side of the blotters allowing faster drying. Kodak used
to make a print dryer using corrugated blotter rolls with a
blower.
The same principle works for flattening prints using a
dry mounting press. The print is put in the press with
either several sheets of pre-dryed "kraft" paper on the
support side or a sheet of blotter paper, also pre-dryed in
the press there. The emulsion side is covered by release
tissue. The print is put into the press and heated for a
minute or two and then the entire sandwich of release
tissue, print, and backup paper, is placed under a flat
weight to cool. I've found this method to be very effective
for fiber based prints and, once flattened this way, the
prints seem to stay flat regardless of temperature or
humidity.
It does not work for RC of course, because the base does
not absorb or loose water. BTW, RC prints seem to curl right
up when the RH get really low, as it does here sometimes.


--
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA

Hi all,

Richard, Thank you for a very lucid explanation of how paper dries?

I've used screens, face up. From my neighbour who is closing his
darkroom because he is returning to Switzerland, I recently received 6
rolls of Kodak Blotting Paper, 11.5" x6'.

I'll try the blotting paper route, but I would like to know if there are
pros and cons to each method. And why?

Thanks!

Cheers,
Bogdan

Steven Woody wrote:

On Mar 5, 9:19 pm, Richard Knoppow wrote:

On Mar 4, 6:01 pm, Steven Woody wrote:


for fiberglass print drying rack, should one put the prints on it with
emusion side down or up? thanks.

The traditional way is to dry fiber prints emulsion side down.
There is a rational to this. The idea is that curling of prints is
mostly due to the emulsion shrinking more than the support. This
shrinking is minimized by slowing down the drying. That happens when
the emulsion is against the screen which limits the contact with the
air. Old style screens used cheesecloth which held some water making
the emulsion side dry even more slowly.
Since the support side of RC paper is dimensionally stable this
drying scheme is not needed although screens may still be convenient
for drying. RC is usually dried emulsion side up.
The differential drying gotten with a screen is also the reason
blotter books and rolls have a non-permeable sheet, waxed paper in the
very old ones, interleaved with the blotters. The idea is to put the
emulsion against the sheet so that the drying takes place mostly from
the support side minimizing curling.

Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA



Thanks for the information. It's good!

--
__________________________________________________ ______________
Bogdan Karasek
Montréal, Québec
Canada www.bogdanphoto.com

"I bear witness"
__________________________________________________ ______________

On Mar 9, 5:08*pm, "Richard Knoppow" wrote:

wrote

Wondered about those "non-permeable" sheets. My blotter
book was set aside years ago in favor of a corrugated board
stack dryer. Although the prints do come out of the dryer
with nothing more than a hint of emulsion side curl they
do over time, unweighted, develop some more
emulsion side curl.

As it is the stack is built by alternating layers of board,
hydrophobic sheets, and prints; a same sheeting each
side of the prints. Perhaps I should be using a less
permeable sheet emulsion side for long term
flatter prints. Dan

* * Worth a try. The idea of these things, especially the
blotter rolls, is that there is some air circulation at the
back side of the blotters allowing faster drying. Kodak used
to make a print dryer using corrugated blotter rolls with a
blower. Richard Knoppow


Kodak's blotter rolls used a single face corrugated
board with a length of blotter paper forming the second
face. I used and liked mine. Prints came out flat but
with the characteristic bend towards the emulsion.
Salthill, Burke & James and others offered corrugated
board stack dryers using BLOTTER PAPER. I've updated
the old corrugated board stack dryer by using a special
ventilator grade corrugated board in conjunction with
non-woven synthetic fiber separators.
The result is a print dryer which is Very inexpensive,
Compact, Ultra light weight, and easily stowable. It
leaves prints dry and Flat. Dan