Distressed Steel Printing

[Annie M.]

Just wondering if anyone has any resources for printing on distressed steel... yes I know the metal is dark... I am going for the extra large Daugerreotype look.

Thanks A

[Jay DeFehr]

If you can make a negative big enough for contact printing, you could try printing white pigmented gelatin. It would not be a simple task, nor the results very permanent (rust, you know), but it should be possible.

[benrains]

I don't have any firsthand experience with doing it, but I can think of two different ways to go about doing it:

One would be to actually coat the plates with collodion and sensitize them in silver nitrate like they were oversized tintype plates. That wouldn't be too easy, but still within the realm of feasible. And then assuming you don't have a camera or lens large enough to actually photograph directly onto the places, or a really big enlarger, you might try projecting a positive transparency onto them using a slide projector. I'm sure the exposure times would be incredibly long--perhaps impractically long--but it might be worth experimenting with it using small pieces of the metal for testing.

The second would be to screenprint an image onto it, with a fine halftone, using an ink similar in coloration to the creamy light-brown of the highlights in old tintypes. You'd need a really large screen though, and from the photograph the steel plates don't look even or very flat. That'd be a problem.

[Annie M.]

I am used to dealing with rust... I don't think it will be an issue.

hmmm... maybe I could make a big paper neg.... thanks Jay

My enlarger can do wall projection so I can use an emulsion if I can find something that will be compatible with the distressed steel... thanks Ben

I was in the middle of another project with the steel and then I realized how much the panels looked like daugerreotypes I was just hoping that someone was already doing something like this so I could give it a try.

[Peter Gomena]

The collodion processes would be difficult because the plates must be coated, exposed and processed while the emulsion is still wet. You might have better luck with a "liquid light" - type liquid gelatin emulsion. It would take quite a bit to coat something that large.

Peter Gomena

[Frank Petronio]

http://www.booksmartstudio.com/products/view/15_booksmart-fine-art-metals

This isn't as crude looking as you probably want but it might be useful for reference.

I made Iris prints on Tin wrapped around the drum in 1998-9 or so. The have held up well, I am sitting underneath one now. They sort of look like huge D-types, the shiny tin reflects more light back than dark steel would, but we mainly used tin because it was thin enough to bend around the drum.

[bob carnie]

People are taking large sheets of metal to a Rhoe printing lab and printing directly to the metal. needs to be flat and you may have to prepare the surface, Sand,

[Jim Michael]

One approach might be to prep the metal and coat with a varnish, selecting one to which liquid emulsion would adhere, then paint the liquid emulsion on etc.

Silkscreen also comes to mind.

[Annie M.]

Great... I think it may be possible to get a photographic image in the steel... the steel is gorgeous.

The booksmart product must overcoated after printing 'due to the nature of ink sitting on metal' I wonder if I could use this to my advantage and make some kind of transfer like a polaroid transfer.... wonder if the silver from a large mural print could have some kind of image transfer if left there for a few months.

Liquid emulsion looks like a good place to start testing some small pieces.

Thanks for the ideas... Annie

[Scott Walker]

I have used liquid light on a number of different types of media including wood, steel, iron, titanium, copper, brass, aluminum, and a few others I'm not remembering at the moment. I have used the emulsion directly on the surface and have also prepped the surface with spray on varathane and or gesso. The results vary with media and the best way to understand it is to experiment with it. I think the most fun I had was with titanium. I acquired a pile of 6"x6" and 10"x10" titanium coupons and anodized them with a paint brush while projecting an image over them, then added the liquid light and exposed the plate to the same image. The results were a black & grey photo with pastel like colour in areas. The darker the media the more subtle your images are going to be, so certain images work better with one media than another.

[johnielvis]

I was thinking of maybe duplicating (har har) the early techniques of xerography---where they use electrostatic xfer--all you'd need is an eletrostatic/photoconductive membrane (fexible)...then you charge it, expost it to light, and dust it with toner....take that and PRESS it on the metal or whatever....the first xeroography experiments took place in a guys apartment---and they worked

seems to me you can adapt existing photocopier parts--use one of the belts they use in the neweer machines...existing toner...etc....

like photo-powdercoating

work on anything I'd assume, that would take the toner.

doesn't look that difficult, only very messy (toner powder)....check out the early xerography days of the history of how it was invented...there is something to this...it would likely be line art looking at best, but looks possible....