Chapter XI: Prints on Fabrics and Imitation Enamels

Making prints on silks and fabrics is essentially a specialty adapted for home work. It is not always easy to get good prints, but the following method by A. J. Jarman can be relied upon if the manipulation advised is followed carefully. A first essential is absolute cleanliness, and a second, the use of distilled water in mixing solutions. Make a salting and sizing solution as follows: Soak 125 grains of hard gelatine in 25 ounces of water. Add common salt 100 grains; ammonium chloride, 25 grains; magnesium lactate, 125 grains. Warm the solution so that the gelatine completely dissolves; soak the fabric in it and suspend to dry. Mix sensitizing solutions as follows: No. 1: nitrate of silver, 120 grains; water, 4 ounces. No. 2: citric acid, 50 grains; white sugar, 50 grains; distilled water, 20 ounces. Soak the fabric in No. 1 for three minutes; drain until surface is dry and draw it carefully through No. 2. Hang up to dry, when it is ready for printing. This sensitizing should be done in the dark-room or in yellow light. The fabric should be kept under pressure, when it will keep good for about a week, but it is better if used fresh. The print is made in an ordinary frame. If the fabric is to be examined during printing, it should be attached by light touches of glue to a card. It is a good plan to sensitize a small extra strip of material which may be used as a test on the negative to be printed from. Having made the test, the picture can be printed by time. Prints should be masked with a clean edge or vignette, and a margin of fabric left all around in case the picture is to be sewn into a cushion. Wash the print in several changes of water and tone in saturated solution of borax, 3 ounces; water, 30 ounces; chloride of gold, 2 grains. As soon as toning is complete, wash in two changes of water and fix in a 10 per cent hypo bath. Fixing takes about ten minutes. After well washing in clean cold water suspend by clips to dry. If the fabric is very thin the preliminary salting solution may be 50 per cent stronger; otherwise the formula as given will answer every purpose for silks and other fabrics.

To those familiar with carbon printing the making of imitation enamels, _i.e._, photographs on china, plates, pottery, etc., offers an attractive home hobby. A carbon print from a good negative is transferred onto a porcelain or other vitreous support, and then, instead of being submitted to the great heat necessary for fusion, it is japanned—that is, the surface of the image is covered with a transparent varnish. The first stages of the work present no unusual difficulties, for they are merely carbon work. A tissue containing a maximum of pigment with a minimum of gelatine should be chosen. This is to a certain extent porous, and by allowing the first coating of varnish to penetrate tends to bind all more closely to the support. Any color of tissue may be used and the picture may be tinted or colored if desired, before being japanned.

A good brand of amber or copal varnish should be used, of the kind known as “stoving varnish,” or it may not stand the heat of japanning. Amber varnish is slightly the harder, but copal is preferable as being colorless. A very thin layer of this varnish is spread on the mounted tissue with a camel’s-hair brush. This first coat should be mixed with an equal quantity of turpentine—it will then spread thinner. Brush marks will disappear during the stoving. One coat must be thoroughly dry and hard before a second is applied; if not, the unequal contraction may in the final stages cause innumerable little cracks. Let the plaque dry in a warm dust-proof place. When a sufficient thickness of glaze has been obtained by repeated coatings and dryings, the enamel is ready for stoving. This may be done in a gas-oven or the kitchen stove. A gentle heat, not less than 150° F. or more than 200° F., should be kept up for five or six hours. The enamel is then allowed to cool. When cold its surface must be polished, first with pumice powder and finished off with putty powder.