Use of Print Dryers with Both FB and RC Papers?

[Baybers]

Hi Folks,
I can get my hands on a near new print dryer, the type with the stretched canvas cover over a stainless sheet base.
I mostly use RC papers till now and the few attempts with fibre have been dealing with curling papers and much hassle. I do want to use more FB paper in the future so I am contemplating this dryer. In the meantime though, can I use the dryer to speed along drying of RC papers and is this a no-no with the resin coating?
Also, any helpful info in general about these dryers would be appreciated.

 

[jammcat]

It sounds like you're describing a heat press rather than a dryer, but I could be incorrect.

I use an (RC-only) print dryer for, you guessed it, my RC paper. You feed the paper in through rollers on one end, and can adjust head/speed... the dried print comes out the other side. Fibre paper definitely should not go in one of those.

For FB I've always hung the prints to dry on a clothesline (or sometimes, added some gentle blowdrying) and then flattened them in a heat press, between two sheets of thick paper.

 

[bence8810]

I have one of those "dryers" with the canvas cover and it works great for fibre but I wouldn't attempt it with RC. You could try with one paper you don't care about with the image facing towards the cloth rather than the metal heater.

On the other hand I think drying RC is as easy as hanging it on a cloth pin, no need to mess with dryers.
However, with the dryer acquired you could play again with fibre perhaps?

My dryer is good up to 11x14. I also have no way of setting temperature and I think mine gets a little too hot so I usually just pre-dry and then put on a flat surface.
Prints are flatter but never completely flat. For that you'd need a dry mount press.

Ben

 

[Roger Hicks]

DON'T use it with RC or it may well melt and weld irremovably onto the dryer.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Baybers]

Thank You

Thank You

Thank you for the replies guys, I won't risk using on RC papers and keep for when I get into the FB stuff. Cheers.

 

[nikon_sam]

If you want to speed up drying RC paper use a hair dryer...don't really need the hottest setting and move it around a lot...

 

[Dwig]

The only way to use that type of dryer with RC paper is to close the dryer and simply lay the RC paper on top of the closed canvas. That will work if AND ONLY IF the dryer has a good adjustable thermostat that allows you to set a temperature under ~140 deg F. It will pull a log of power and will aid drying only a little bit. I wouldn't bother.

 

[Lauffray]

Is a heat press a must when using FB paper ?

 

[bence8810]

Is a heat press a must when using FB paper ?

I so far only printed up to 8x10 with FB and it can be dried hanging just fine but the curl needs a day or two under a stack of books to flatten.
Summers are easier (humid in Japan) to tame the curl, winters are harder.

Above 8x10 I am afraid it's harder to flatten as you just won't find books big enough.

I am planning on printing 20x24's very soon and will post back with results. I am definitely not going to buy a dry mount press as it would take up too much space.

I read people often have good results drying FB paper on a mosquito screen or just taped to a window tight etc.

Ben

 

[Freakscene]

Is a heat press a must when using FB paper ?

No. The flattest prints are ones that are dried held flat. I used to tape my FB prints to glass, a trick I was shown by a Czech darkroom technician, but there are other ways including doing the final drying under pressure in a press.

Marty

 

[Rob-F]

I have one of those dryers with the stretched canvas. I place the FB prints face up on the metal so that the emulsion faces the canvas. A fairly low heat setting seems best.

To dry RC paper, I made air drying racks by stretching plastic window screen material over 1 x 1 wood frames of about 16 x 20 inches. I place the prints face up on the screens until dry. I can stack several screens to dry a number of prints at once.

 

[Pablito]

Two quick notes:

1. Those dryers with the canvas are not considered to be archival because the canvas can become contaminated. Dry a few prints that are not perfectly washed and the canvas becomes contaminated with fixer. Or the canvas can become acidic from environmental conditions. This is for those who are very particular about archival processing.

2. You can get RC papers to dry very fast with no heat by following the following method: Soak briefly in a wetting agent after the wash (optional but speeds the process). Hang by one corner from a line, with a plastic clothespin. After a minute or so, use a paper towel (or an acid free blotter paper) to soak up the drop of water that will have collected at the bottom corner of the print. Repeat when another water droplet forms. Print will be dry in a few minutes. Of course this works less well in a very humid envoronment. Works great in a room with a/c.

 

[Lauffray]

No. The flattest prints are ones that are dried held flat. I used to tape my FB prints to glass, a trick I was shown by a Czech darkroom technician, but there are other ways including doing the final drying under pressure in a press.

Marty

What kind of tape do you use not to damage the print when you take it off once it's dried ?

 

[Roger Hicks]

No. The flattest prints are ones that are dried held flat. I used to tape my FB prints to glass, a trick I was shown by a Czech darkroom technician, but there are other ways including doing the final drying under pressure in a press.

Marty

Dear Marty,

Quite. Frances uses stacked blotting paper.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Nokton48]

I've always dried FB prints rolled up in a Kodak Blotter Roll, after thorough archival washing. They come out of there curved in shape, so I use photo mount board to sandwich the pile of prints, then pile heavy books on the whole thing, and leave them there for several days.

Works for me. They are flat as a filbert after that.

 

[marek_]

I used an FB plate drier as described above for a while, but found that the edges of the print would dry in a warped wavy pattern. Once this had happened, I found it impossible to flatten these edges out. I had to trim them so to have a flat even print. Now I let the prints dry on a clothes line then flatten them between to chunky sheets of MDF with four clamps for pressure. I usually stack then between paper. You can have a flat print after a day or two and best results - completely flat after a week. For smaller prints I put them between the pages of some old art monographs, then stack some volumes of the Britannica encyclopaedia on top.

 

[Dwig]

FB prints are like cotton T-shirts. If you handle them roughly while wet they'll never be flat or unwrinkled again. Never lift an FB print out of a tray by only one corner unless it is a 5x7" or smaller print. Treat the prints gently while wet and it will the success of any drying method.

 

[x-ray]

Use a hair dryer for your RC prints. The dryer you describe is for fiber base and probay too hot for RC. I've used these before but it's been decades and was before RC was out.

Get a used Seal drymount press to flatten your fiber prints. Air dry them on blotters or screens face up and when come rely dry flatten them in the press. This is what I do and it works very well. A used seal press isnt that expensive unless you get the newest and largest model.

 

[Rob-F]

Use a hair dryer for your RC prints. The dryer you describe is for fiber base and probay too hot for RC. I've used these before but it's been decades and was before RC was out.

Nahh. Sponge or squeegee RC prints and air dry them like I described above.

 

[Freakscene]

What kind of tape do you use not to damage the print when you take it off once it's dried ?

There is no sort of tape that I know of that doesn't damage the paper.

I use gummed paper tape, the sort you moisten with water before applying, but you need to cut the edges of the print off to remove the tape once the print is dry. For 35mm photos I usually print 8x12 on 11x14 paper which ends up about 10x13 after trimming. In my experience this is worth it for when you need a really, completely dead flat print. Blotter dried or hot press flattened prints still generally have a slight curve, but prints dried this way are really utterly flat. A lot of photographers who I printed for who sold unmounted prints liked prints dried this way.

Marty