Varnishing Prints

[paulr]

Has anyone worked with varnishes (or similar protective finishes) on rag paper inkjet prints?

I'm working on a book project using piezography quadtone (carbon pigment) inks on cotton fiber paper. One of the issues is the durability of the paper coating and the pigment inks that sit on the surface. They tend to scuff and to actually transfer to facing pages.

Some things that don't work are inkjet protective sprays (lyson) and art fixatives (like lascaux) when used alone.

I've been experimenting with combinations of fixatives and gloss varnishes, including golden paint polymer varnsihes, both the water based and the mineral spirit, spray-on kind. Some of the results are drop-dead gorgeous. Imagine the long straight line curve of a platinum print with the d-max of the best gelatin silver papers.

Unfortunately, applying the gloss coatings is tedious, toxic, and difficult. Very hard to get smooth, even coats.
I'm curious if anyone has tips for less toxic and/or easier to apply finishes. or at least better ways to do what i'm doing.

Any thoughts?

[Will Strain]

when I had images that were roughly the same size, I made a mask from a piece of mat board that gave me 1/4" larger than the largest image I had.

I then used that as an overlay to spray gloss varnish and make a nice varnish edge/border - but still allowing for good overspray coverage (which makes even coats easier).

Three passes did the trick with the Zinzer Bullseye shellac... looks great. Archival properties I know nothing about...but the technique might help you.

[Kirk Gittings]

"Unfortunately, applying the gloss coatings is tedious, toxic, and difficult."

My experiences exactly. Here in the SW it is imposssible (without a cleanroom) to get dust free results. There are machines for this that digital printing portrait photographers use. But I don't know much about them. Maybe there is someone in your area that runs a high volume studio that you could check out. Iw ould be interested in your solutions. Keep us posted.

[paulr]

I had lots of dust problems when I lived in the southwest, too. Of course, now I live in the northeast, and have the same problems ... so I suspect it has less to do with my region than my lifestyle ...

After a bit more research I'm considering getting an airbrush (pretty cheap on ebay) and seeing how it works for applying the water-based varnishes (like the golden polymer varnish, that gets good reviews on livick.com). Thinking maybe my troubles getting an even coat with it had more to do with brush application than with the solvent. The cleanroom part may still be an issue, but at least the water-based coatings seem to dry quite fast.

Has anyone used an airbrush with water based materials? seems like varnishing has to be easier than pimping a harley davidson or other typical airbrush projects.

Thanks again for any ideas.

[julian_4860]

Paul,
I was an early adopter of Piezo, back when the 1160 was a new machine. Like you I tried varnishes. I gave up on a brush and got a wired wound rod. Lay the print down, put a bead of varnish at the top then use the rod to pull the varnish over the print. As a development of that I canabalised an old mangle, put the rod in place of the top roller, taped the print to a board and pulled the print through the mangle

[Robert C. McColloch]

Try Renaissance micro-crystal wax polish (use by the British Museum restoration specialists).

[Will Strain]

Julian's method works well with a glass rod too - that's how I was coating Platinum paper for a while.

[Henry Ambrose]

Paul,

A couple of thoughts about the airbrush - you'll probably need to thin the material quite a bit and I suspect that getting a lap free coating will be tough. Airbrushes are not made to coat large areas so you'll be making many passes to coat an 8X10. I suspect that the paper will absorb the varnish unevenly depending on how much ink coverage and how the coating on the paper holds back the varnish. You might try one of the homeowner grade airless sprayers combined with Will's mask technique to get one even wet coat - one big blast covers the print. Experiment with the distance from sprayer to surface to find best results in even coverage. And don't forget that several light coats might give the best result as the first coat dries and seals the surface and later coats build an even finish.

As for the toxicity of the coatings, you are on the right track with the water based stuff, but you should still wear a respirator made for painting. A little varnish on your hands will not be a problem, but you don't want ANY in your lungs. Water clean up will be a huge advantage.

Finally I wonder if a small offset printing press could be used to varnish your prints? If the prints were all the same size making one varnish plate and running a batch shouldn't cost that much. Even if the image sizes varied you could do a flood varnish where the whole sheet gets a hit of varnish. In any event the varnish would be laid on nice and even! You'd need enough margin or border for the machine to grab.

[Kirk Gittings]

http://www.knifeart.com/renwax65.html

Here is a link for the above mentioned wax.

[paulr]

Thanks for all the ideas, everyone.
I'll let you know what works after the experiments are done.