Digital BW, The Print

First off, I'd like to extend a hearty thanks to Paul and others for the
wealth of info on coating techniques. Come to think of it, I'd like to
extend similar thanks to everyone who contributes to the enormous info bank
we have here. This is one of the all-time best of the net digests, IMHO.

I am greatly intrigued by your technique, Paul. (And I'm deeply grateful for
the many hours of research you've done and the fact that you have so kindly
shared your findings here...). With a background in print design, I'm
familiar with metering rods (in principle, anyway) on press, where they
essentially scrape away the excess of varnish that's applied to the
substrate as it passes the bath. But if I'm reading your posts and the
archived files correctly, you're actually just pushing the rod across the
image -- using it to apply, rather than pull off the excess? Forgive me if
this is a silly question, but I'm intrigued enough to experiment a bit one
of these days and I'd don't want to miss anything in the principles, anyway.
That way if I fail miserably and slink back to 'fridge for comfort it will
be for lack of skill and technique rather than a simple blunder of
preparedness.

Matthew Born