Drying fibre prints with a dry mount press

[peter brooks]

I've read that you can dry fibre prints using a dry mount press.

Does anyone do this? If so, what kind of temperature do you use and for how long? Print size would be 10x8.

I currently dry fibre prints by taping them to plywood squares using Micropore (a wonderful breathable and apparently waterproof adhesive tape, used a lot in the medical world and once kept a rear light cover attached to a Saab of ours for several years :)). It works well and the end result is good and flat but I'd like something simpler and quicker (and greener - I doubt if the miles of Micropore I am using are biodegradeable!)

[koraks]

Out of interest: does the micropore release from the emulsion after drying and/or does it leave traces? I'm currently using gummed tape, the kind for watercolor artists (very environmentally friendly!), but you have to cut the margins or overmatte them as the tape attaches permanently unless it's made wet again (which would defeat the purpose).

Sorry for not answering your question; I've only used a clothes iron to straighten out air-dried fiber prints; worked reasonably OK at the wool setting of the iron. That would probably be something around 80C but I haven't measured it.

[JMO]

If you already have a dry mount press, the old tried and true method of laying the damp prints on horizontally-oriented plastic or nylon window screens is simple and fool proof. After the prints come out of the final wash I squeegee them, then hang them from a nylon twine in my darkroom for about 20 minutes so any surface drops leftover from the squeegee are dried, and then place them (face down) on the window screens for a couple of days (under my basement conditions). The prints dry nearly perfectly flat and are easy to trim and dry mount.

[Alan9940]

I use print drying screens to air dry prints, then use a dry mount press to flatten prints to be mounted.

[Peter Lewin]

I use print drying screens to air dry prints, then use a dry mount press to flatten prints to be mounted.
That's my approach as well. I dry face up on home-made screens, an old Fred Picker suggestion. The prints dry pretty curly, but the dry mount press flattens them perfectly. I've never heard of anyone using the press as a drying mechanism, I suspect the wet emulsion would adhere to whatever you placed on top of it.

[Joe O'Hara]

What Alan9940 said. After I dry (in the press) the mat board that I will use for the mount (one minute, open the press
and remove the mat to let the steam evaporate, then 30 seconds more), I put the print on top of the dried mat
and give it about 30 seconds (my press is set to 190 F as I am working through a stash of vintage Kodak dry mount
tissue). The print comes out perfectly flat and at about the same moisture content as the board it will be attached
to, so I never have a problem with the mounted print curling or coming up loose at the edges.

BTW, I found that the prints stick better if they are covered only with a piece of vellum during the sealing process.
I used to put another mat board over them, and besides it taking a very long time, there was often a problem with the
very edges of the print not being perfectly bonded. The instructions with the old Kodak tissue recommend using only
a sheet of paper, and sure enough, they were right.

[Willie]

You don't dry them in the press, you flatten them. Putting damp prints into the press can cause major problems for you with emulsion sticking to whatever surface the print is in contact with. Once dry you put the slightly wavy print into the press - using clean mat board and changing it often as any chemical contamination in the print can transfer and then contaminate other prints in the process.

The drying screen method works well. A good feature is that if you discover you put prints that were not well rinsed on the screens you can hose them off to assure they are clean for the next prints.

[jp]

There's really no place for much excess moisture to go when wet things go into a press and water is liberated with the heat energy. Curling is a result of the print having moisture but not so much for it to be wet. A quick bit of heat to flatten it does liberate moisture as it stays flat until it absorbs some again. The material you sandwich it with in the drymount press also needs to be heated and pulled out to dry it before and after use.

[peter brooks]

Thanks everyone - that was a quick batch of replies!

So a press can be used to flatten prints once they are dry but not from wet. Makes sense. I'll try the window screen / mesh method for initial drying and see how I get on with that.


Out of interest: does the micropore release from the emulsion after drying and/or does it leave traces? I'm currently using gummed tape, the kind for watercolor artists (very environmentally friendly!), but you have to cut the margins or overmatte them as the tape attaches permanently unless it's made wet again (which would defeat the purpose).

Yeah, the micropore was my modification of the gummed paper method. It releases really well; it might leave a very few tiny bits of tacky adhesive but these are easy to see (and feel) and another piece of micropore can be used to remove it (just stick it locally and release it again). It's got a very gentle adhesive. I use 1".

If micropore didn't seem so indestructible it would be my perfect method.

[Ginette]

If you wish to help drying FB print before flattering in the drymounting press you can use an electric print dryer available easily used in varied sizes. If you bought an used one, you can change the apron which is most often vey soiled.

[peter brooks]

Is that the same as a print glazer? Sounds like a good idea...

[Daniel Stone]

For drying prints flat, sandwich the print between two (framed) window screens. Pre made(or go to a glazier shop and have them made) in lightweight aluminum frames work well. The thin, rectangular profile of the off-the-shelf window screen frames allows for very little curl to develop in the drying prints.

then take binder clips and clamp the edges together of the frames, and boom done. Prints generally come out super flat(compared to just laying them open faced on a single screen) in my experience.

I just use ambient air, or if a little faster drying time is needed, take them outside and put them in the sun, as described above ^^^

-Dan

[peter brooks]

Thanks. By screen you mean a fly screen (fine mesh) material? I'm in the UK and we don't use it as much as you folks in warmer climates... :)

[Daniel Stone]

Yes. Another material that works well is pet screen door material. It is also a mesh, but heavier, and also PVC coated.

https://www.amazon.com/Phifer-3032233-PetScreen-Single-Black/dp/B00KVRPJYO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1544999126&sr=8-3&keywords=pet+screen+door+fabric

When I have sufficient space to build out my darkroom again in the next few years, I will be constructing new aluminum frames with this phifer material, as I want them to stand up to heavy, consistent use.

-Dan

[Ulophot]

I dry on nylon screens. Curling varies with humidity. I have a Zone VI print flattener. a size-adjustable plexiglass (Perspex) device that induces a reverse curl. To further flatten, I use the device I created for weighting prints coming out of the drymount press. namely, two rectangles (approx 14x18 inches) cut from a Formica-surfaced kithen cabinet door I got free during a building refurb. The two pieces are screwed together with the handle mounted on one edge for lifting. The weight of the double-thickness of 3/4-inch composite chipped wood is considerable, the surface is perfectly flat and very smooth. Naturally, cautionmust be used to ensre that no particles lie on either surface that might be pressed into the print. I have had no problems with this so far.

[John Olsen]

I dry my prints in a warm room for several hours, then use a couple of 20 s trips through the dry mount press at 175 F for a final flat and dry print. (It's really just so I can get a nice, flat print for my scanner.) Afterwards I place them between dry mount boards with nice, heavy photobooks on top for several hours. Richard Avedon books work well and provide good karma to the process.

Then, when I'm ready to dry mount my prints, I run them through again for two 20 s times at 175F. I put the mount boards through twice for 45 s too, because they get a lot of moisture just sitting around here in the Puget Sound humidity.

I'm using D&K BufferMount and have had good luck with these processing steps.

[Drew Wiley]

Fiber based backing paper and the image side of the print absorb humidity at different rates, so even if you dry them, they can still curl with significant humidity changes. A quantity of prints in the same box or case exerts weight, so reduces curl. Or maybe you just live in a dry climate to begin with and are lucky in that respect. I briefly press-dry prints anyway, just before drymounting, as one always should unless the humidity is consistently low. But museum board absorbs humidity even faster than the prints themselves, so there you go ... at that point, you either have to frame them with a flat backing material or store them in a stack of their own where sheer weight works for you. I'm dry-mounting a hundred prints this month, and rainy season has already begun; so religiously pre-drying all the sheet goods (except the drymount tissue itself) is mandatory. For sake of cleanliness and general health, I use passive electric heat in the lab, and not forced air heating, which would obviously dry moist air better (and dry or irritate my own respiratory system). Ordinary air drying is done on fiberglass window screens. For big prints I use big sliding door screens, which I got from from my former employer - we had a major door and window business, and anything that had to replaced for warranty reasons, even if brand new, was free. I got some otherwise expensive warped doors that way too. They were custom made for a military installation. I simply attached the door jambs and moldings in a matching warp, then everything fit perfectly. Nobody has even noticed, though most of the people who see my darkroom are actually the same spiders who sneaked in there in the dark, and they haven't complained yet ... but being polite hasn't saved either their webs or their little lives.

[Eric Woodbury]

I hang dry my prints, just as I do my negs. I had screens, but I could see little patterns on the surface of the prints when done, so I abandon that technique. Besides, it took a lot of space that I don't have. They curl up pretty good when you hang dry, but then I flatten them in a 210F dry mount press and stack them under a rock for cooling: face to face, back to back in the pile. They are pretty flat. Not like an RC print.

Sometimes I dry mount prints, but time is so precious and dry mounting, unless you do it all the time, is a bit risky. Mat board is expensive and takes up room (again, that I don't have). Mostly I cut an over-mat and tape the print in the proper spot with some type of tape that is used in book and box making. It's removable, kinda. Not sure what it is. It has a release paper backing. A box maker friend gave it to me.

[invisibleflash]

I dry on screens and flatten in a dry mount press.

[Drew Wiley]

A screen leaves no impression or pattern unless you're drying the prints emulsion-down for some inexplicable reason.

[Peter Lewin]

A screen leaves no impression or pattern unless you're drying the prints emulsion-down for some inexplicable reason.
I happen to agree with you about drying on screens face up. Largely that is because one of my first workshop teachers, Fred Picker, did it that way, and I've been doing it that way for close to half a century. But face down is not "inexplicable;" that's the way the Ansel Adams books say to do it. Lots of people learned from that series.

[Drew Wiley]

Yep, good ole Ansel. People took him like the Bible; but he was wrong about quite a few things. Fred Picker was a different kind of "character" for sure.

[neil poulsen]

I recall my photography teacher at Oregon State saying that, if we were caught drying prints in the dry-mount press, we'd get an "F" in the class. :)

Point being, one needs to be careful about contaminating the press with fixer.

On a related note that I haven't yet tried, I've heard that there's an advantage to heating up museum board in the dry-mount press. After tacking the back of the print with dry-mount tissue, I trim the print with a standard RotoTrim. Doing so, there's a chance that after dry-mounting the print onto the board, it can contract and leave a little of the tissue showing around the edge. Warming the mounting board can keep this from occurring.

For the same reason, Steve Anchell recommends trimming prints prior to mounting with a razor blade and a straight-edge (versus a RotoTrim) to avoid this.

As for drying prints, I leave them overnight on an acid free screen.

[John Layton]

After carefully squeegeeing my prints I hang them to air-dry...making sure to flip them over before they dry completely to help ensure a good degree of flatness.

A final refinement of flatness is then achieved by press-drying the print immediately prior to dry mounting.

I do plan to upgrade my drying system soon with a system I'd used in a previous darkroom - which is to string a second drying line at a distance below the first to allow clipping prints by top and bottom edges, keeping prints under tension as they dry. This worked quite well.

For those who dry prints on some sort of substrate...be very careful about contamination - either from a buildup of crud over time, and/or surfaces (like plywood) which may, especially in the presence of moisture present in a damp print, have their deleterious components leach themselves into a print as it dries.

[Pieter]

A little off-topic: can you dry prints in a microwave? I thought I read somewhere that Ansel Adams would do that to judge dry-down on test prints.

[Drew Wiley]

He was dried test strips in a microwave, not keeper prints. A microwave might harm the emulsion; sounds risky. I analogously use a little toaster oven for only about 20 sec for evaluating dry-down density of test strips. But even that short time embrittles the emulsion, or worse, if too long, like burnt toast (the secret to a truly maximum DMax !).

[faberryman]

He was dried test strips in a microwave, not keeper prints. A microwave might harm the emulsion; sounds risky. I analogously use a little toaster oven for only about 20 sec for evaluating dry-down density of test strips. But even that short time embrittles the emulsion, or worse, if too long, like burnt toast (the secret to a truly maximum DMax !).
I don't dry my prints before evaluating them. If you print enough, you know the effect of dry down.

[Drew Wiley]

That's an interesting tidbit of swagger, and I believe it; but just how many types of paper do you work with? I employ quite a variety, and despite many years of experience, find it beneficial to sometimes not only dry down strips before exposing a full piece of expensive paper, but also, at times, to allow trial prints to fully air dry at least two days before making a judgment call (it's damp here most of the year). What one printer finds acceptable in final outcome might not meet someone else's expectations.

[Daniel Stone]

Hair dryer works quite well to dry fiber paper quickly enough to assess rough estimates of dry down, in my experience.

[Greg]

I suspect the wet emulsion would adhere to whatever you placed on top of it.

Way back when this is exactly what happened to my prints, but have known others to have had no problems. I suspect it depends on the boards that you are using. I air dry face up on fiberglass screens with a small "computer" fan moving around the air, then use a Seal press to flatten them between two 4 ply archival boards. Prefer lower temps with longer flattening times rather than higher temps with shorter flattening times but more out of habit than for a particular reason.

[faberryman]

I air dry face up on fiberglass screens with a small "computer" fan moving around the air, then use a Seal press to flatten them between two 4 ply archival boards.I have found that prints dry flatter face down.

[Rick Rosen]

I have found that prints dry flatter face down.

I agree and have been drying that way for 50 years.

Rick

[Drew Wiley]

I agree that they dry somewhat flatter face down too, but certainly not flat enough to forego stacking them underneath a heavy sheet of plate glass after they're air dried to seriously flatten them, just like I do with prints dried face up, which is the safer way, given that the emulsion is still soft when they're laid on the screens.