Digital BW, The Print

Hello,

I just wanted to report my home brewing experiences based on Paul
Roark's "Carbon-6" B&W Inkset.

I mixed my C-6 base using distilled water and Glycerol USP both bought
at a local pharmacy.

Initial tests without PhotoFlo in the mix showed a lot of banding for
the  2%, 4%, 8% and 16% dilutions.

Having no Photo-Flo, I tried a 50-50 mix of Ecover Rinse Aid and
Nature Clean Rinse Agent bought at local grocery store. I mixed the
two in the hope the combination of different surfactants would create
a working synergy. Banding is now gone. Zero. Nothing. Even under a
magnifying glass.

Knowing I could not print using Epson's driver because we do not know
what the driver does with the Blue and Red ink channels, I played a
lot with QTR.

Having no spectro, I looked at existing curves. I settled on the
9880-UC warm curve that uses one pure MK, one LK and one LLK dilution.

I adapted that curve so that my R1800 would use one 100% density pure
Eboni channel, three 16% dilution LK channels and two 4% dilution LLK
channels. I kept two free channels so I can always use the simple 3MK
approach if I want a BO print.

I used more than one channel for the LK and LLK in the hope of 
minimizing possible future banding. I also made the LK and LLK curves
have slightly different slopes by changing the channels ink limit by +
or - 4% to create more smoothness in the mids and highs.

I am happy to report that, even without relinearizing, the prints show
smother gradients on the sphere test gradient print than I used to get
with K7 using the right curve and paper. Amazing. And so much smoother
than the 3MK! 

It prints a lot warmer than 3MK in the light midtones and on
Premierart BW 205 creates a very nice splittone effect.

How stable this homemade brew will be I do not know. Will it kill my
R1800? I don't care as the 1400 is as good or better and dirt cheap.

So I can now print either a 3MK BO that has this special look for the
highlights and sometimes very appealing "grain", or print warmer
utrasmooth splittones.

I also like the fact that this "system" only requires pure Eboni ink
bought from Inksupply.com and that all the rest I can find at the
pharmacy or grocery store. :-)

I know I am not very good at describing this process but I wanted to
share anyways.

Denis Bouchard

Denis,

Thanks for sharing your experiences and home brew formula.

> I just wanted to report my home brewing experiences based on Paul
> Roark's "Carbon-6" B&W Inkset.
> 
...
> 
> Having no Photo-Flo, I tried a 50-50 mix of Ecover Rinse Aid 
> and Nature Clean Rinse Agent bought at local grocery store. 
> I mixed the two in the hope the combination of different
> surfactants would create a working synergy. 

> Banding is now gone. Zero. Nothing. Even under a
> magnifying glass.

For the 1800, and probably the 1400, the quality of the surfactants 
is probably the key to smoothness.  It may also be the case that 
different surfactants will cause the mix to print slightly warmer or 
cooler.  How much is used may also be a factor.  So, varying these 
ingedients and seeing if there is any change in the tones might be 
worthwhile.

Good luck with the mix.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com