Albumen Printing Question...

[fraseran]

I hope I am posting in the right section... I am curious if anyone has experimented with the albumen process.
Right now I am double-coating the albumen, but routinely have issues with "blistering". I am wondering if I can get the same effect (increased dmax) by substituting the initial albumen coat with arrow-root starch (that is to say: first coat is arrowroot and the second coat is the standard albumen)? Perhaps this would also eliminate the issues with hardening, etc? Thoughts?

[Harlan Chapman]

I've been fussing with albumen printing for a couple of years. The double coated albumen print is compelling for its rich, deep glossy finish and dMax that rivals silver gelatin. But it comes at the cost of multiplying the flaws in the albumenizing of the paper, having to cope with severe curl after albumenizing, sensitizing, and final processing, and toning that takes a lot more gold and is really slow.
There is a workaround that can at least help solve the problem of multiplying the flaws in the albumen layer when double coating. I've prepared albumen from freshly cracked eggs and from powdered egg whites. In my experience the albumenizing and printing results are indistinguishable with fresh or powder. So using powdered egg whites I found that I could increase the concentration of the albumen solution (along with the AcOH and chloride components) to about 1.6x normal. A single albumen coating with this high-concentration albumen solution gives a coating that rivals a double-coat with normal egg white solution without compounding flaws. It is harder to wet with the silver nitrate solution when sensitizing but a bit of tween 20 seems to make wetting work better without causing other problems. Hope this helps.
-Harlan