Posted by Mike Jackson on January 27, 2004
A couple of nights ago, I exposed two silk screens and needed to use the ruby red filler to block out some stray areas. I knew I had a fairly large bottle of it, so I thoroughly looked through all the cabinets I just knew it had to be in. Eventually I gave up and just spread out some of the regular screen emulsion. With the lights on, it dried just as though it had been exposed.
A while later, I was angel gilding a piece of glass. As the gold deposited gradually onto the glass surface, it began reflecting the bottles and boxes of stuff on the shelf right in front of me. I shot this photo, and when I was looking at it in Photoshop the next day, I noticed the white bottle of screen block near the top.
Well, I know where that bottle is now, and I probably won't forget its place in the shop.
Mike Jackson
Roderick
Mike JacksonMike,
Give us a little more look(zoom out) at your area where the angle guild panel was . I'd like to see your set up.
Roderick
Roderick,
My set up is pretty low-tech right now. I have a photographic developing tray to catch all the chemicals with a piece of gridded plastic covering it. I bought that at the lumber yard the other day. The tray is setting on my outfeed table of my Ryobi table saw. The tray and entire set up was carefull "leveled" to keep the solution from getting too heavy on one side or rolling off. Other than that, there are bottles of distilled and tap water and the bottles of gold and silver. I have three or four pyrex mixing jars and a bunch of paper towels, plus the normal supplies for cleaning. I bought a little Black and Decker "Sanding Mouse" for abrading the glass, using the pad that looks quite a bit like a Scotch Brite pad. Also, as mentioned in another post, I purchased one of those soft rubber mattes at the lumber yard to protect the glass when abrading. They are usually found in the "sanding" area of the lumber yard, used to help hold a small board in place while belt sanding or palm sanding. The sell for around $15 if I remember correctly. We use it all the time for other things, including sanding.
Ideally, I'd have a rinse-off sink right next to this set up. The plexiglass sink that was in my old garage is now upstairs (I built one just like Rick's). It hasn't been re-connected yet...not sure if I will or not since I'd really prefer to do this over the concrete floor and not my carpeted office area. It wouldn't take too much to add a sink in the garage since the drain runs down the wall right next to the table saw and the water heater is just on the other side of the wall.
The concept is to pour off all the "valuable" or caustic chemicals into a container (in this case the tray) and rinse off with spray bottles. Final rinsing would be done in the sink. When cleaning the glass, I am working a little harder right now than I want because you really need to rinse the glass well before going to the next step of final rinsing with distilled water and then the tin solution. I noticed this issue more on a recent gilding over a glue chipped panel. I think I needed to rinse longer and water has tendency to puddle in all the crevices. Unless you are doing a lot of solution gilding, you only end up with about a half inch of crud water in the tray. It evaporates in about a week, leaving only chemicals. I've used the same tray for years. It probably has a few dollars worth of gold and silver in it, but I doubt is ever gets reclaimed.
I bought one of those 3 gallon "weed sprayers" with the pump and wand when I was doing this a long time ago. I think I will get it back out. It keeps you from having to pump the small squirt bottles and holds quite a bit more distilled water. I can't remember if it was Rick Glawson or David Butler I saw using one. While I might be originally concerned the plastic bottle might be introducing some chemicals into the distilled water, it occurred to me that distilled water is usually sold in a plastic bottle. The spray bottle has never had weed chemicals in it, just water.
In the photo above, I have a piece of glass setting on two strips of clear plex, with small 1/4" x 1/4" strips glued to them. When I make more, I will make a series of 1/4" x 1/4" x 1/4" "cubes" spaced about 3" apart. As it is now, there is a "chance" some unwanted chemicals can climb the edges of the glass from the longer strips. In the specific piece of glass shown here, the edges are beveled so it isn't really hitting the edge of the strip.
In the photo, the gold solution was just poured onto the glass and it beginning to darken a tiny bit. I usually do this layer with the solution slightly diluted with distilled water. It deposits the first thin layer (the one you eventually see), then I pour all the solution back into a pyrex container and beef up the gold and reducer and pour it back on. (Here again, I am hoping to reduce the amount of pollutants that might be on the underside of the glass because it gets poured back into the pyrex container at the same time)
Hope this helps,
Mike Jackson
Denver Chapter of the Letterheads