flat bed print dryers for FB paper

[paul owen]

I am about to start using Fibre paper for the first time and would appreciate so me advice !!!! I have just won a load of FB paper and chemicals including seleni um andd gold toners in a competition. But I would like some comments on how best to dry the resulting prints. Should I dry them naturally on screens or use a fl at bed dryer. The reason that I am contemplating using the dryer option is that part of the competition prize is photo equipment from the KAISER range of produc ts. The Kaiser flat bed dryer falls within the limit of the prize monies. I have read that dryers need to be kept clean (especially the blanket). How does heat drying affect toning (selenium or gold) Many thanks in anticipation. Paul

[Mark DeMulder]

I use Oriental Seagull fiber-based paper. It is a double weight paper and very good quality. I let the prints dry naturally on a large screen. They normally dry well in about 24 hours. This works fine, but you need to dry mount them after they are dry because of the amount of curling up that happens. When dry mounted, they look great.

Good luck.

[bob moulton]

I use Forte and Oriental papers and have found that screens, such as those sold by Calumet under the old Zone VI logo, work better than driers. Keeping the drier clean, free from any grit or hypo can be a problem. The screens, on the other hand, can be washed in a sink with a combination of clorox and water and last quite well. I placed some standards on my darkroom wall and used the supports for shelves, but my shelves are my screens. One hint that works for me. I dry my prints face up to avoid the screen grid marks. Before I place the images on the screens, I drain them on large clean plexiglass --the kind available in hardware-home depot tye store-to remove excess water.

[Doremus Scudder]

Paul, There is absolutely no way you can really keep the blanket on a flat bed dryer clean enough not to give you worries about contamination when you are trying to process and present archivally. The time- honored and simplest method is to dry your prints face-up on clean screens, which you can wash from time to time in a dilute chlorine bleach solution (neutralizes fixer). Yes the prints curl, but fiber- base prints curl from the flat bed dryers as well. There are many ways to flatten them, but, as mentioned above, dry-mounting (my personal preference) or other type of archival mounting with an overmat and frame is usually what will be your goal for a finished product. Save yourself some money and worry and go down to your local window screen shop and have them make you up some screens to your dimensions with nylon or poly screen material and the cheapest anodized extruded frame you can find. Then you can use your prize money for something really important. BTW, I like to leave a little extra space around the edges of my prints for air circulation and space the screens with wooden or plastic blocks. Regards, ;^D)