Problems during Printing ...
Question and Answer: Preventing Mold
Q: (from Dave Bull) "My
apartment is not air-conditioned, and during the rainy season and
through the summer when the humidity is very high, I have a problem
with the paper becoming moldy during the process of printing.
The advice I received from a few of the older
printers here (Tokyo) was to use 'Formalin' to stop the mold. ...
Last year though, I saw a story in my newspaper that cited Formalin
as being a carcinogen, and so have stopped using it.
How do you guys handle this problem?"
A: (from Dan Wasserman) The
following may work if the paper is kept in a sealed container.
Rubbing alcohol fumes produce an mold unfriendly environment in
closed quarters but vapors off quickly when the paper is left out for
any time, but the question is, would it harden the paper size? Clove
oil fumes off a rag or sponge would also serve but anything else like
boric acid would I'm sure pose an archival problem... I understand
printing in the old days was very seasonal. ... I think I would buy
an old refrigerator if I were you.
A: (from Bill Mixon) One
strategy used in a papermaking class at SMFA last summer, to preserve
the buckets of wet pulp over the hot nights for the next day's class,
was to pour a little mouthwash (brand probably not too fussy) into
it. This seemed to work, up to a point (we had some pulp last
_almost_ a week). Certainly it's less toxic than Formalin. I'd
imagine that brushing a dilute solution of the stuff over the
printing papers, or even mixing it in with the damping water, would
do the trick.
A: (from Bill Mixon)
Another thought. Rather than using fungicides of questionable safety
and side effects, perhaps you could just schedule your summer
printing sessions as multiple shorter runs (say two or three of 40 to
60 prints each)? That way each run might fit within the time limit
imposed by those little mold spores!
I realize this would probably be a pain on several
fronts: extra setup and cleanup time, and extra difficulties of
color-matching between runs. But throwing away good paper gone bad is
an expensive pain too. One has to find a balance point...
A: (from Matthew Brown) The
trick I rely on the most for this scheduling difficulty is the
freezer. If I get interrupted, etc. the prints go into a plastic bag
into the deep freeze. Have that bag airtight and your moisture
content should be the same when they come back out (given several
hours to come back to room temp).
A: (from Graham Scholes)
Noboru Sawai, my teacher, gave me some chemical, Thymol I believe is
the name. It retards the mold forming in paper. You put about 2
crystals in one liter of water. I use distilled water.
A: (from James Mundie)
There is a product you might want to consider for your mold problem
as an alternative for formalin. Shaklee Corporation out of San
Francisco makes a biodegradable concentrated disinfectant/germicide
called "Basic-G" that might fit the bill (the label says
"psueodomonacidal, staphylocidal, salmonellacidal, fungicidal..."). I
use it around the house for various cleaning chores. It's harmful to
skin in its concentrated form, but one generally uses only a few
drops to a litre of water. Its pH is neutral, so it probably would
not have any detrimental effects on the printing process.
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