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Size matters - moving forward ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 7:21 AM, July 26, 2010 [Permalink]

This thread about paper sizing is continued from here, and started here.

With the colour blocks for the Hasui design now done, it's time to put on another hat and get the sizing project moved forward a bit.

I took a trip to the local 'home center' to pick up some of the small supplies I will need, and to see if I could find anything that might be useable for the heating pan.

First, the easy part. How to hang and dry the sized paper?

Keeping in mind that one of the problems I have recently had with the paper I received from Misawa-san was the clip marks, I hunted around for something that wouldn't leave any ridges. Found it!

They look like normal (plastic) clothespins, but are designated 'for lingerie'. They have no ridges, just a smooth plastic surface inside the clip!

I bought a bunch, and when I got home, cut some small wood strips, screwed a clip to each end, and made a pile of little 'hangers':

 

 

The reason for making these is that unlike Misawa-san, who does the hanging job together with his wife ...

... I'm here alone. But it seems to me that I can simply clip one of these hangers to the top sheet of wet paper on the stack, and then hang it up by myself ...

As for where to hang it, I went upstairs to my 'bedroom', rigged up a bunch of hooks on rails on each side of the room, stretched a few sample strings between them, and tried it out. (This is just two sheets of dry paper, as a test ...)

That room is up on the 4th floor - very airy - and has two windows, which should allow me to control the drying rate pretty well I think. (Although I can already see that the strings will need to be tighter ... It's very damp here these days, and they lost tension straight away ...)

Tomorrow's job is to build the heating tray, and I'm still not sure how to go about that. I was thinking about using an IH hot plate, but after asking some questions on my favourite online 'help site', it seems that this might not be the best approach ... Any advice here would be welcome!

This thread about sizing continues here.

Discussion

Following comment posted by: Kalle Pihlajasaari on July 27, 2010 12:17 AM

I love those pegs, will have to hunt some down locally.

How about a fishtank heater or two, they are not likely to scorch the size but are usually low wattage though some big aquariums may support a market for larger units.

If you need more heat then a host of immersion heaters are available for kettles, urns, geysers and such but will require some amount of engineering and wiring to hook up. Geyser elements often have a 'dry' pocket for a thermostat that is wired in series, however they usually require a threaded hole for fitting. Urn elements are sometimes fitted through a plain hole in the bottom of the container, but they do not usually have a thermostat and use a stove type duty cycle controller to regulate how often the water is brought to a boil, they will also likely encrust with size if they get to boiling point.

Professional electroplating tank elements with ceramic or Teflon coating would be the thing but I can see them costing a lot.

Regards
Kalle
--
Idyllic Press - Johannesburg, South Africa



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