I continue to search for a stock of older photo paper that is still useable and also suitable for Bromoil. When that fails or if I’m successful and eventually runout, then I will travel down the liquid emulsion or Oil print process path.
For now this is ORWO Universal BN118….
The paper codes are a little obscure and there’s not that much info online.
B = Baryta
N = Normal Grade, there’s also W, S, N H and EH, which I assume is weak, soft, normal, hard and extra hard?
1 = Double Weight paper
1 = Bright White surface
8 = Lustre? There’s also 1 Glossy, 2 half matt, 2A Velvet, 3 Matt, 6 Silk, 7 Embossed and 8 Lustre?
I have a few packs of BN117 which definitely has a strange “embossed” textured surface, okay at a distance but just weird up close.
This BN118 is more matt than Lustre in my eyes, and lovely just as a straight darkroom paper.
As its coded as Normal Grade, I’m not sure what level of contrast control there can be? Maybe with adjusting developer or development. If anyone knows how contrast applies to ORWO paper please let me know.
These were all printed straight with no filtration. I’ll do some test next to see if filtration amd exposure times makes any difference to contrast.
As for now for Bromoil use these are developed in Ilford PQ Universal and fixed in Ilford Hypam.
Some of the usual suspects, as I know how they’ve bromoiled with other papers in the past.
Initial inking is with a stagfoot brush and No. 1796 Litho black ink. It took the Ink well but soon muddied. This is with a five minute room temp soak. Following the advise of the RPS workshop last year. Note: my usual straight through to inking method didn’t work at all.
With a little further work it improved slightly. Enough for me to persevere.
Increased soak time to 30 minutes, reduced any mottling, improved contrast and ink uptake. So it shows some promise.
Something I’d read about but never tried is Superdrying. Now this can be done pre bleach/tan and pre soaking prior to inking.
This test print was superdried for two minutes with the studio heater. I saw an immediate improvement, so much as to question why on earth haven’t I superdried before. A quick question on the FB Bromoil group shows only a handful of people do.
So to double check, the next day I inked without superdrying and got almost the same result! Bromoil is so frustrating.
Here’s another without superdrying, to prove to myself it wasn’t just a fluke. Same 30 minute room temp soak and 1796 black ink.
This one of the door handle was with Senefelder’s Crayon Black No.1803
I really like this paper, so I bought all the seller had, all 27 boxes of 100 sheets. I still need to fine tune, soak times and temps, but I think I have enough paper to spare for those tests 🙂
They are all BN118 and 13×18 cm which works fine for me, as I’ll be looking into Bromoil Tranfer next year.
Its also a bonus that this paper works really well as a straight photgraphic paper, which now has me thinking how well does it tone and Lith?
if anyone has any further info on ORWO Universal, especially contrast control, please get in touch.