Ferrotyping?

[sepiareverb]

It's been a very long time since I did this, and I can't for the life of me remember what one did.

There was the hot drum, the cloth, and as I recall SW Azo proofsheets. But exactly what did one do? And I have some memory of 'Ferrotyping Solution' (perhaps I drank it accidentally?)

Can someone refresh my memory and walk us through the process?

Thanks!

 

[Roger Hicks]

Soak prints in glazing solution (traditionally oxgall). Drain (no need to squeegee -- in fact, may reduce contact with drum). Feed print into glazer. Wait. Collect when it falls out.

DO NOT try this with RC!

Cheers,

R.

 

[sepiareverb]

Thanks Roger!

 

[payasam]

Same result if you plaster wet print to clean glass.

 

[Dektol Dan]

If you are using the old style with chrome plated brass plates, heater, and canvas stretcher, just place the print face down on the plate after a good wash after hypo clear. Keep feeling the canvas until dry (not steamy, a little practice helps). As soon as it is dry the print should curl itself off the plate. If it's still wet it will have to be peeled back, often leaving a nasty pattern in the gloss. If the print has any hypo left the print will flash brown in in the non silvered areas. Keep the plated clean and it works almost every time!

 

[Pablito]

the metal needs to be without flaws. it is really a skill to get this right and have a perfect gloss. good luck!

 

[sepiareverb]

Thanks guys!

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

the metal needs to be without flaws. it is really a skill to get this right and have a perfect gloss. good luck!

When I was in high school, the school had a motorized ferrotype drum dryer. you fed prints in the bottom, they came out dry and glossy on top

Worked great till one of the little *******s scratched "F--ck You" in the metal. you had to be careful to put your print in when that part of the drum wasn't coming around or you'd have those words imprinted on your print.

 

[Al Kaplan]

For years I made do with a flat bed dryer for my glossy prints. When a studio near here closed down I was able to pick up a big Pako drum dryer, the one with the narrower drum (12 inch?) for about $100 and it really speeded up my drying sessions. Perhaps a year later Kodak introduced resin coated (RC) paper and I had this big old dryer just sitting there unused and I couldn't sell it. It was in great shape, clean drum, motor worked, heat control worked, and I ended up letting the city's trash pick-up haul it off to a landfill someplace. That was at least twenty-five years ago. Now I'm thinking that I should have kept it. Painted up in bright colors with a tie-dyed cloth apron it'd make an interesting looking space heater in the living room.

 

[payasam]

Al, you could have placed the flat-bed in front of it and sat on that.

 

[Al Kaplan]

You're right, Mukul, and it too could have been used as a space heater ;-) I guess that what I was envisioning was turning an obsolete piece of "photographica" into modern art. After seeing a few exhibits at North Miami's Museum of Contemporary Art I've developed a new appreciation of the absurd.

Another thought comes to mind. Getting somebody to print (via ink jet?) the apron of the flat bed dryer with the image of four 8 X 10 prints, complete with white borders, "drying" on the dryer. Then paint the metal parts with bright colors of course. I guess I'll go dig out my late 19th century 5 X 7 E. & H. T. Anthony view camera. Painting pink and white hearts all over the red bellows would turn it into a great Valentine's Day prop.