From: Jack Brubaker (jack@jackbrubaker.com)
Date: 04/16/03-01:23:59 PM Z
Chris,
It's one thing to be mixing gum in your food processer (relatively safe) but
I wouldn't even open a container of pigment in the kitchen. I don't have
running water where I do my gum work so have to run upstairs to wash up my
utensils. I make it a rule to only wash in the bathroom (bad enough). I
never use any kitchen utensils or washout anything related to printing in
the kitchen. I keep each pigment in a closed jar inside a larger plastic
bag. In each jar is a dedicated plastic spoon. It only lives there and is
never set down anywhere else. The plastic bag catchs those little spills
that so often occur around pigment. The plastic bag isn't opened until the
bench has a sacrificial sheet of paper covering the area with the pigment
container in the middle of it. I have a roll of unprinted news print from
the local paper on a roll off rack on the end of the bench. When done mixing
color the paper is gathered up and in the recycling. This may sound fantical
but I agree that powder can go everwhere if you don't plan ahead. Some of it
is just too dangerous to take chances with...
Jack
> From: "Christina Z. Anderson" <zphoto@montana.net>
> Reply-To: alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca
> Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 09:27:20 -0600
> To: Alt list <alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca>
> Subject: gum, powdered pigments and powdered arabic
>
> Good morning all,
> I just can't leave experimentation alone...after Dave's post about
> powdered pigments, and the fact that I had run out of liquid gum and had
> powdered gum available, AND powdered pigments for other purposes, and
> reading in Barnet's 1898 book about Demachy's dilution of gum arabic, etc.
> etc. I found this out:
> I found Demachy mixed gum/water in a ratio of 30-35%. Hence I took my
> powdered gum arabic from Daniel Smith and did this ratio, in my food
> processor. After reading hither and thither that it isn't good to use the
> powdered form, takes 4 or 5 days to settle, etc etc. I found that it whips
> up really well in the food processor, and after about an hour (?) or at
> least while I was measuring pigment powder, it cleared into exactly the same
> gum I buy in liquid form from D. Smith. Light amber, viscous, you name it,
> and half the price as the liquid form. In fact, I would bet D. Smith uses
> powdered arabic and mixes it themselves.
> Then, I decided to disprove whether you need to let it sit and soak and
> I printed it right away--perfectly fine.
> Then, I weighed and measured powdered pigment. By all means, q. violet
> is so incredibly fine it suspends in the air and got over my entire kitchen,
> so that everywhere I wiped down counters it bled purple. Luckily my husband
> is out of town for several weeks because he would've s--t!
> Furthermore, I found out that weighing pigments is a crock. The
> teaspoon amount of the 6 powders I have varies from 3 tsp to 12 for 10 g!!!
> It would seem to me to be much more profitable to mix pigments by volume, or
> forget the measures and eyeball.
> So then I tested immediately printing a raw umber powder pigment/powder
> gum right away to see if it stains, streaks, etc, and sure enough--it is
> perfect. On unsized Rives BFK.
> Today I will test my nemesis, q. violet. At the 10g/120ml that someone
> on this list (Dave?) uses, it was 8 teaspoons of the stuff. Way too
> concentrated in my opinion, but if it's gonna stain, it should. If it
> doesn't, I'm switching to powder.
> My usual morning 2 cents (you know--it is so nice to have people out
> there like you guys that even give a rip about this info, because when I go
> to school all excited about something inane like powdered pigments they look
> at me with blase eyes like I am nuts).
> One request: does anyone have Warren's 1899 book The Gum Bichromate
> Process who could xerox it for me and I would pay them? I really would like
> to look at it. That and Pigment Printing by...can't remember right now...are
> two I don't have.
> Chris
>
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