Digital BW, The Print

Dear Mark,

  thank you very much for your opinions. I am happy as I know now that
I am not alone in pursuing fine-art conservation grade in Black and
White Digital printing. Your trepidation is exactly what was behind
the two years effort that concluded with the Carbon-Gelatine technique.

Unfortunately, the results of the tests by Wilhelm Research and by 
others are  playing a negative role in the effort of pursuing fine art
archivability. Their conclusions are used by us to validate current
inject techniques in a lazy approach, rather than encouraging us to
purse new techniques. The fact is that, although the results of their
test are  very important on they own, they are misused by the vast
majority. In other word, it is just another excuse for us to keep
using commercial solutions. Look at how many time they are advocated
in this tread alone. I think I will take the link to Wilhelm Research
out of my web site.
I especially appreciated this comment of yours:
> You are going to have to examine absolutely every component of your
art. 

Although the medium, the ink base and the gelatine coating in the
Carbon-Gelatine approach are fine in archival terms, the undiluted ink
is not, being the weakest ring of the chain. If <100 nm carbon
pigments were available, making that ink  would be pretty easy.
However, fin art carbon pigments are much coarser than that. To grind
them to the correct size will require a ball mill and <100nm filters.
 I am not sure how easy would that be. However, in order to make the
undiluted ink, you still need to disperse the pigments into a
dispersant. The dispersants used in commercial ink are not fine art
grade. Those used in fine-art are colloidal and will easily clog
permanently the printer. Do you have a suggestion for an archival
grade dispersant?

Thank you very much.

  Mantinieri
www.mantinieri.com