Digital BW, The Print

Stan,

So you drag the rod, not turning it?  Hmmmmm.  Will have to try this,
thanks.

Phil

"Shire,Stanley" wrote:
> 
> Walking thru Lowe's this morning, I passed the screen door parts
> display. About halfway down the aisle I did a double-take (rarely seen
> in Lowe's). Geez, that looks like a Mayer Rod (Mayer Bar). On closer
> inspection, I was intrigued and, not yet having ordered a Mayer Rod, I
> bought the spring. (#4 D&G Spring, Zinc, about 15.25" in length) $2.42.
> I put a digital micrometer (hey, we're talkin' digital printing here so
> I just couldn't use an analog micrometer) on the spring wire..it
> measures about .0488. This is larger than Paul's #14 Mayer (I think
> .035) but I was already in for the $2.42. A 1/4" dowel fits nicely
> inside the spring once I cut the attachment loops off each end.
> Plate glass on my workbench (cabinetmaking bench..honest, it's dead
> flat), taped an Epson Smooth Fine Art print to the glass, dribbled some
> Minwax Polycrylic above the print (note how scientific this is) and
> lightly dragged the rod through the poly and down the print.
> Lovely coating, smooth, no bubbles. The print looks much richer with
> great blacks. Couldn't measure the blacks as I was not up to driving
> downtown to access the densitometer at the college. The coating is
> obviously thicker than Paul's (a Mayer Rod coating is 1/10 the wire
> diameter; so Paul's #14 is .0035 in thick and mine is .0048)
> Cleanup was easy. Pulled the dowel out, rinsed inside and outside with
> water.
> I will get a #14 rod for the thinner coating (unless I can find a
> smaller screen door spring (would that be a number 3 or a #5?)
> 
> Stan Shire
> Associate Professor/Department Chair
> Photographic Imaging
> Community College of Philadelphia
> Adobe Photoshop 6 A.C.E.
> Author: Hands On Photoshop 7: Tutorial Workshops