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trapper

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I don't know how to look this up so I will ask here.
Someone came in wanting a picture done..they said that the competition told them it would take a month to flatten it out. ( been rolled up in a tube ). My first reaction was more like a yelp as I said what?
I have been trying to figure out what in the world was the competition doing to take that long ???
More like what was he not doing to be taking that long...Any clues or ideas?
 
Rolled items can be stored, in a folder, in a drawer and that will allow them to become flatter,
without heat or moisture being added.


Hugh
 
We use a "D-Roller". Expensive but we use it a lot in our print business when we print on roll paper. Google 'um and make your own for occasional use. It's just a matter of reverse rolling, simple and effective. Expensive, rag paper responds quickly; less expensive, coated papers need to be d rolled for a while.
 
trapper,

Do you have a vacuum press? I flatten prints and posters in my press frequently. No heat or moisture is required although I may use a warm press on occasion depending on the type of paper.

Framerguy
 
As Warren mentioned the De-Roller is an easy way to flatten out items which have been stored rolled for too long. Uses "KISS" (keep it simple silly) technology!! It's available through your Bienfang distributor.
 
I have only had one item that did not relax after being rolled up for about "a hundred years" - and that was an old photo. Most other works on paper relax on their own if put between a couple of pieces of foamboard while the project is in the production queue to be done - anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks is ample time.
I would be reluctant to help them relax with any heat or moisture unless they were really in bad shape.

Roz
 
The pictures were bought at a garage sale by her kids and appear to be on parchment paper.
Personally I think in a vacuum press for a couple of days is all it would take. No heat or moisture..just the sheer weight of the press..don't ya think? I can 't see why it would have to be flattened for a month on or with anything.
Wouldn't the mat as well as the glass alone hold it flat. aprox. 12 X 14 and only curled up now on the edges.
 
I recently had two old photos from the CCC era (mid thirties) which had been rolled up and stored in an attic for nearly 70 years.

Trying to unroll it was like nailing Jell-O to a wall. Even with weights the curl kept pulling them up like a berserk window shade. Because of its age, I was afraid that the emulsion would crack if I tried to straighten it out by simply plopping in the dry mount press.

For such occasions, we place about 1/2” of room temperature water into a cheap, plastic, wall paper trough (~32 x 5 x 4), place some plastic (not metal) ice cube trays on top of the water then prop the rolled up photos/posters on top of the ice cube trays so that it is not in direct contact with the water.

We then cover the entire package with shrink wrap film and seal the open end with potato chip clips (Frito-Lay, if you must know). In two or three days the paper absorbs enough moisture in this humid environment so that it can be unrolled without fear of cracking the emulsion. At this point you can flatten/mount it in the dry mount press.

We used to place a sheet of acrylic on top of the wall paper trough, but as the rolled up piece began to relax, it expanded a bit and touched the acrylic which had collected condensation on it. The shrink wrap film is baggy enough so that this doesn’t happen anymore.
 
Medium would make a difference in how a piece could be flattened. Certain kinds of silk screens, can't take reverse rolling or humidity or the ink will crack. And of course some media would off-set if rolled, and others feather if humidified.

As Bill notes, fiber based photograph paper, will just naturally curl because the two sides of the paper - emulsion vs non emulsion -react to changes in ambient humidity so differently. That's quite the dandy humidity chamber he's constructed!

As Hugh says, sometimes things are just so fragile (or the unknowns so worrisome) that the safest thing to do is to leave them under weight for a long long time.

Rebecca
 
Personally I think in a vacuum press for a couple of days is all it would take.
Click to expand...
You DO understand that, for a vacuum press to exert any pressure at all, it needs to be turned on?

A combo press can be turned on without heat (vacuum only) but I'd be reluctant to leave it on for a couple of days.

There are risks with putting a tightly-rolled item in a vacuum press, even if it's sandwiched between a couple of boards. If even a corner gets folded over, you'll end up with a crease that might never come out.
 
I guess what I was looking for was information on "how long" , not how to. A month seemed a little far fetched to me. I know I could just try it and see how they looked the next day, but I was wanting a bit more of an educated guess than that. I don't want to say a couple of days and then have them curl up.
As for the vac. press I was just using it as a weight that would be evenly distributed. The only problem is I would have to use the machine for other work during the daytime and it would have to act as a press in the evening. Afraid all the time spent on it durring the evening would be undone during the day while it set about waiting for its turn to go back into the press come that evening when I have closed up and gone home. I wonder if I just sandwiched them between a layer of foam if that would hold them flat for the day??? You think?
 
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