[Leica] Drymounting tips

[Mike Johnston <michaeljohnston@ameritech.net>]

>>>>>
I have started to come under the spell of FB printing.  I have a dry
mounting press and have some ?'s for the group.  The FB prints that I
have
so far mounted have some waviness and when I dry mount I am getting
creases
on the sides where the print did not evenly adhere to the board.  I have

tried mounting piece meal - starting at one corner and working the
mounting
process towards the diagonal corner - have tried using a supplemental
tacking iron but this hasn't helped.  Any thoughts from the group.

<<<<<<<

Ernie,
We (_PHOTO Techniques_, www.phototechmag.com) published an extensive
article on drymounting, by Brian Plikaytis, a while back, which will be
reprinted in our next premium (special) issue, slated for publication
later this year.

Wavy prints (as opposed to ones with curl, which is almost unavoidable)
are usually caused by leaving too much water in the print when it is set
out to dry. Try squeegeeing it face down on your sqeegeeing surface
first, using two hard overlapping strokes from the middle to the edges,
then reversing the print (squeegeeing the excess water from the flat
surface in the meantime) and using two lighter strokes on the face of it
(lighter to avoid damaging the emulsion). If the problem persists, try
increasing the humidity of the drying area somehow--the slower prints
dry, generally, the flatter they'll stay.

To make an unmounted print lie flat, the important thing is to let it
cool from the drymount press while being held flat. If the print is
small enough, sandwich it in a book. If it's larger, use a flat plate of
some sort--metal ones are sold that are made for the purpose, but
virtually anything that is clean and flat and large enough will serve.
Put the pressed print under the flattener directly from the press and
let it cool thoroughly under pressure. This won't get rid of all the
curl, but it will help.

A neat method for getting black-and-white prints to lie perfectly
card-flat without appreciably increasing their bulk is to drymount them
back-to-back with an unexposed but fixed and washed sheet of paper from
the same box. The thickness is not much more than that of the two sheets
of paper, but the stresses exactly counteract each other and the print
will lie perfectly flat and look as good as if it were dryounted to a
board.

Hope this helps.

- --Mike