[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking.

Baren Digest               Saturday, 4 April 1998       Volume 03 : Number 116

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From: jimandkatemundie@juno.com (James G Mundie)
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 12:15:14 -0500
Subject: [Baren 549] paper prices, Mexican leadcuts 

for Ray and Graham:

	Well, I hardly intended to cause such uproar.  I didn't list what
I paid per sheet of kitakata because I couldn't remember exactly.  But, 
in the neighborhood of US$2.50 to $3.50 a sheet seems about right (the
price has fluctuated over the past five years).  And yes, that may not
seem like a lot of money, but when you need twenty sheets, you're not "a
wealthy Canadian" (no offense meant to wealthy Canadians), and you also
need to buy groceries, three bucks a pop for a 16"x 20" sheet (I think
you're right there, Ray) "isn't cheap"; but it is money well spent.  [By
the way, the last time I bought a sheet of Fabriano, which is similar in
size to kitakata, I paid US$7.50.]
	It does pay to shop around.  Some dealers have excellent prices
over all, but inexplicably high prices on certain items.  I haven't used
Daniel Smith for this reason for many years (although the last time I did
I got a bargain by getting together with several other printmakers to
place a giant order).  Others dealers seem to not realize the value of
what they have and offer it for ludicrously low prices (decidedly less
common than the above situation). 
Keep in mind that I am not ordering direct from Japan, so I also wind up
paying a supplier's mark-up.
	There are other papers that are cheap as all-get-out (50 cents to
a dollar) which are nice for proofing.



Dan wrote:
>Leadcuts!...

Dover published a nice book of these some years back (I don't remember
the title off the top of my head).  They're great, though.  You've
probably seen some at one time or another-- frolicking skeletons, Santa
Anna, and whatnot.  They usually tend toward religious or political
commentary.  I think some examples of punch prints are also included in
the Dover volume (but there are medieval German examples of this to be
found, as well).


Mise le meas,
James Mundie, Philadelphia USA  

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From: Ray Esposito <brassring@brassring.org>
Date: Fri, 03 Apr 1998 15:28:42 -0500
Subject: [Baren 550] Re: paper prices, Mexican leadcuts 

James wrote:
>	Well, I hardly intended to cause such uproar.  

You didn't cause an uproar.  Things get a little dull around here at times
and us curmudgeons like to liven things up.  Everything is said to help
each other, even if the tone sometimes is a wee bit harsh.  Keep all of
those great thoughts coming.  You are an important part of Baren.

Cheers

Ray Esposito

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From: David Bull <davebull@asahi-net.email.ne.jp>
Date: Sat, 04 Apr 1998 20:55:32 +0900
Subject: [Baren 551] Re: sharpening topics 

People have been talking a bit recently about using a leather strop, and
that started me thinking about sharpening and stuff ... so when I was
looking for a topic for work the other evening I put an Encyclopedia
page together on sharpening stones.

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~xs3d-bull/baren/encyclopedia/updates.html



A few random notes ...


***

Gayle wrote:
> Dave, your tools entry ...  I like the photos.  

Actually this is a bit interesting.  Those are not photos ... nor are
they from a digital camera.  

When I was doing that page the other evening, I didn't want to have to
get out the camera, put film in it, shoot the tools (badly, as usual),
take the film to the shop, wait for it to be developed, etc., so I tried
a different approach.

I laid the tools directly on the glass of my scanner, covered them with
a cloth, and pushed the 'scan' button.  I was amazed by the way they
came out - especially the 'photo' of my hangi-to.

It's too bad I couldn't use the same technique for the sharpening stones
...


***

I was visiting Seki-san the printer this afternoon on some other
business, and saw something quite interesting on his workbench.  It was
a stack of 100 Hiroshige reproductions that he was doing for one of the
Tokyo publishers, nothing out-of-the-ordinary for him, but I was very
surprised to see that the sheets had all been carefully dried and
pressed ... with nothing but the key-block printed - no colours.

When I asked him what was going on, he explained that this was the way
he had to do it 'these days' - moisten the paper, print the key block,
dry the paper, wait a day, re-moisten it, print the colours, dry the
paper.

He said that the sizing recently is usually not done so well, and that
if he printed the colours soon after the sumi (or even waiting a day),
the baren pressure inevitably caused the black lines to smear slightly,
and 'spread' out thicker.  According to him, 'it didn't used to be that
way', and one could move right on to printing colours directly, but this
is what has to be done these days ...


***

Matsumura-san has a new product in his hanga supply shop - something
called 'washi no kabi dome' ('Stop mold in paper').

It's a bottle filled with a sort of greeny-yellowy fluid, and is to be
mixed in with the water used for moistening, in the ratio of 20cc per
litre.

I asked him if had any idea what was inside it, and he just shrugged ...
who knows?  But when I said that I wouldn't even consider using it
without knowing what was in there, he said he would look into it, and
the other day I got a letter from him with a sheet copied from the
manufacturer's blurb.  The ingredients listed are all simple 'elements'
- - Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and then SO4, but there's no information on
what that means ...  Is this a virulent poison, or something safe ...? 
I'll call them up next week and try to get a more useful answer.

(In Seki-san's workshop, we were talking about paste, and when he opened
his jar to show me a sample, the formalin odor was so strong my eyes
started to water ...)

Dave

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End of Baren Digest V3 #116
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