T206 experiment part 1

[steve B]

When we were discussing wet sheet transfers I offered to do some experimenting with a beater I had. Here's the results.

The card is a JJ Clarke SC 350.

I placed it inside a folded piece of printer paper and two boards, then clamped it in the vise on my workbench. The vise is old, but clamped down tight it probably generated a few hundred pounds of force/square inch. A bonus is that the basement is damp, so it was a decent simulation of poor storage with weight on a stack of cards. The printer paper is made to absorb ink, so any tendency to transfer should work a bit better.

I left it there about 2 1/2 weeks, a bit longer than I'd planned.


From outside the folded printer paper it looks promising, the paper picked up the shape ofthe card as well as the grain of the wood. Plus it's a bit stuck to the card. Time to open the paper and see what's happened.


Nothing at all. The card was stuck to the paper on both sides, and both the paper and card got embosed with the grain of the wood. But no transfer on either side.

Other than the obvious there are a few possibilities that would have made it fail to transfer.
It's possible that the dirt on the card surface absorbed any undried ink
It's also possible that some other drying happened, maybe heat?
It's possible that some reds won't transfer from pressure and some will.

Overall I think it's safe to say that offset transfers from SC 350 series cards are not due to pressure and humidity long after production.

Obviously I can't test shortly after production.

A further test with a cleaner card would probably rule out the dirt and heat drying theories, at this time I don't have one that I feel would be worth risking as it's likely the red just won't transfer under those conditions.


Next up for poor old JJ --- Alcohol and pressure.

Steve B