First canvas printing experiences

[BernardLanguillier]

Dear all,

Following recent exchanges in this very forum, I have started to print canves with my Epson 9900 and thought I would share back with the team.

Rather arbitrarily, I have chosen to enter the canves world with a product called Lyve from Breathing Color. Lyve is a 450gr canvas designed specially for archival ink jet fine art prints. It goes with a matched water based varnish call Glamour II that can also be used as a mounting adhesive.

Here is a quick summary of my main findings as a total beginner:

- Packaging: just a small issue, but I had a head jam with my first print that is probably the result of the end of the 44 inch roll not being cut completely straight. Cutting the paper straight manually did solve the problem,

- Colors: so far so good. I have printed both in color using the icc profile provided by BC and in B&W using the Epson ABW driver mode and have been very pleased with the colors/tones achieved so far. One caveat is that ABW tends to lay a bit too much pigments on the paper. Moving from the default "darker" mode to "dark" did reduce somewhat the problem, but one should be careful when manipulating the paper prior to varnishing. It is all to easy to leave differential gloss mark on the print even when manipulating them with cotton gloves.

- Varnishing: is obviously the scary part since the process has the potential to ruin a costly large print. I have to say though that it ended up being easier than I thought it would be. The key really is to lay enough varnish at first pass without overdoing the subsequent manipulations. In my 20c room, it tool several hours for all the whitish marks to vanish after first application, but once they did vanish, they left a very unfirorm coating on the print. I recommend watching the videos on BC site that are pretty helpful (although there is no voice on my Mac). I would recommend leaving enough time for practise between the first attempts and productive deadlines though.

Varnished prints appear to be very resistant to manipulations, although I have not done any specific tests to see how far one could go.

- Mounting: I have tried various things on this account:
  - Gluing with Glamour II to Gatorboard (1/2 inch thick): it works pretty well with the 10% water dilution recommended by BC, but removing all the air trapped between the print and the board wihout damaging the print surface has proven a bit challenging. Varnishing prior to mounting might be the better way but I have not tried this yet. In the end I decided to stapple the glued print anyway. The first attempt was a 6 foot wide pano that is now displayed in my living room and has left guests pretty impressed so far,
  - Stappling to Gatorboard: fairly easy to do by hand for moderate size prints with good resulting flatness. On the other hand I believe that the large panos I am targetting will be hard to tension properlly without any gluing. Still experimenting here.

- Support: very good so far, all my questions were answered by mail very quickly and accurately. I also find the FAQ on BC's site to be straight to the point and very informative.

Hope it helps.

Cheers,
Bernard

[wolfnowl]

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Bernard.  I'll take the liberty of adding http://www.breathingcolor.com/ in case anyone else is interested.

[bill t.]

Welcome to the Canvas Club!

Couple of things...

Differential gloss marks always disappear when you coat.  Also, if you glue mount canvas really awful kinks, bends and warps and end-of-roll bumps will usually disappear.

Always feed out a couple inches of canvas at the beginning of any printing session, will completely eliminate head bangs.

Yes dried, coated canvases are extremely tough.  If you do get a scrape, use a small brush to paint a few drops of coating over the scrape, let it bleed past the scrape as much as you like.  It will dry out perfectly and invisibly.  This is especially useful if you have to dig out a piece of dust.

Glamour II is a terrible glue!  It dries way, way too fast!  Use a fabric glue like Raphael's Miracle Muck, I'm sure you can find something like that in Japan.  It's regular PVA glue but somewhat more flexible.  If you apply too much glue that will encourage bubbles.  You need to spread out about 11ml to 12ml (max!) of glue per cubic foot of Gatorfoam, but first you have to make sure your roller is completely saturated with glue, which will take as much as 200ml of glue for a 200mm wide roller...prime the roller against a piece of cardboard if you're a newby.  With that amount of glue I never get air bubbles, but it doesn't take too much more to cause problems.  You also need to have a very even spread of glue, that's why the extra working time you get from Muck is so important, you can take up to about 3 minutes to spread.  Have a fine-pointed pin nearby in case of air bubbles, that's all it takes!

Coating is a big subject, but if you're getting roller marks you may need to apply the paint onto the print faster (as by pouring-then-spreading instead of transferring with the roller) or a little more diluted.  In any case the proper look is to have a really wet looking surface all over the canvas when you have just finished completely coating it.  No easy trick.  IMHO.  HVLP spraying is the way to go.  I have been successfully spraying canvases outside at just a few degree above freezing...as long as there is brilliant, direct sunlight on the print, and the print is tilted to face the sun!  Sun should be near transit, I'm at about 35N latitude at high altitude.  Forget even slightly overcast days.  Huge variations in surface texture is possible using different thicknesses and numbers of coatings, takes a while to get a handle on that.

Be sure to adjust your Paper Thickness to about 0.5 to 0.6mm.  When I first started with canvas I was using the default media setting of (I think) 0.3 which was constantly slightly scraping the canvas surface and leading to nightmare clogs.  Most inkjet canvases are about 0.4 to 0.5mm thick.

Just put three big canvases in a restaurant, the biggest is 42 x 98 to the outside of the frame.  It's so totally hot!

[neile]

I've been messing with canvas a bit too. I got a short roll of the Breathing Color Lyve and my wife is totally addicted to the output. Still waiting for the test bottle of their glossy coating to arrive. I'll roller it on as best as possible, I'm afraid to commit to an HPLV just yet

Neil

[BernardLanguillier]

Welcome to the Canvas Club!

Couple of things...

Thanks a lot about the advice Bill! Much appreciated!

Cheers,
Bernard

[Wayne Fox]

I recommend watching the videos on BC site that are pretty helpful (although there is no voice on my Mac).

I tried my Lyve test canvas roll last week, it does appear to be slightly better than Chromata white.  Amazing how white it is without using any OBA's.

I watched the PC version and was able to get sound OK.  I have Flip4Mac loaded so that might be why the .wmv played ok for me.  The audio does help a little.

[BernardLanguillier]

I tried my Lyve test canvas roll last week, it does appear to be slightly better than Chromata white.  Amazing how white it is without using any OBA's.

I watched the PC version and was able to get sound OK.  I have Flip4Mac loaded so that might be why the .wmv played ok for me.  The audio does help a little.

Thanks, I'll try that or replaying it in a VM running Win 7.

Regards,
Bernard

[Jeff Phillips]

>>The key really is to lay enough varnish at first pass without overdoing the subsequent manipulations. In my 20c room, it tool several hours for all the whitish marks to vanish after first application, but once they did vanish, they left a very unfirorm coating on the print.<<

I'll chime in:

  Bill has a good suggestion - adding a bit more water will help with the white marks.  I am in Florida and I find there is some variability in the white marks and drying time depending on temperature, humidity and the amount of water added.  I find it best to go with more dilution when in doubt.  I put on a generious first coat, roll it out and wait about 45 seconds and roll out the print again 90 degrees from the first roll out.  This helps to get rid of any air bubbles in the varnish.  At this point I look at the reflections and see if there are any spots that need more coating, add it and roll out one more time.  An HPLV gun would be a better solution and one is on my wish list.  
   I also use a vacuume press on occasion.  I mount the canvas to gatorboard with heat activated adhesive sheets then coat.  No air bubbles (under the canvas) this way.  I have had similar excellent results with a dry mount press.  Not a cheap solution but one that works well.

As others have said - welcome to the club...

JDP

[Doyle Yoder]

I mount the canvas to gatorboard with heat activated adhesive sheets then coat.  No air bubbles (under the canvas) this way.  I have had similar excellent results with a dry mount press.  Not a cheap solution but one that works well.

Would you be so kind as to give us some details as to the manufacture and your methods with heat activated adhesive. It would interesting to see if this process would work with (doing them at the same time with heat set laminate. Laminate and mount in less than 5 minutes?

Doyle

[framah]

Mounting times and temps are different than for laminating. Most mounting can be done at around 170 or so for about 3-4 minutes and the laminating is usually done at closer to 200 for 10 - 12 minutes.
I find that technically, you can do both at the same time but there is more chance of messing up. Better to do it right the first time.
Mount first, then laminate.

[BernardLanguillier]

>>The key really is to lay enough varnish at first pass without overdoing the subsequent manipulations. In my 20c room, it tool several hours for all the whitish marks to vanish after first application, but once they did vanish, they left a very unfirorm coating on the print.<<

I'll chime in:

  Bill has a good suggestion - adding a bit more water will help with the white marks.  I am in Florida and I find there is some variability in the white marks and drying time depending on temperature, humidity and the amount of water added.  I find it best to go with more dilution when in doubt.  I put on a generious first coat, roll it out and wait about 45 seconds and roll out the print again 90 degrees from the first roll out.  This helps to get rid of any air bubbles in the varnish.  At this point I look at the reflections and see if there are any spots that need more coating, add it and roll out one more time.  An HPLV gun would be a better solution and one is on my wish list.  
   I also use a vacuume press on occasion.  I mount the canvas to gatorboard with heat activated adhesive sheets then coat.  No air bubbles (under the canvas) this way.  I have had similar excellent results with a dry mount press.  Not a cheap solution but one that works well.

Thanks for the tips!

Cheers,
Bernard

[Jeff Phillips]

Would you be so kind as to give us some details as to the manufacture and your methods with heat activated adhesive. It would interesting to see if this process would work with (doing them at the same time with heat set laminate. Laminate and mount in less than 5 minutes?

Doyle

  I would.  I need to go to the studio to get the exact specs.  My memory is likely to be wrong.  I know - not helpful.  I'll try to post the products later this evening...

JDP

[Jeff Phillips]

Would you be so kind as to give us some details as to the manufacture and your methods with heat activated adhesive. It would interesting to see if this process would work with (doing them at the same time with heat set laminate. Laminate and mount in less than 5 minutes?

Doyle

 

I have not tried laminating and I think framah has it right.  The difference in temps would be an issue.  I use Colormount, Fusion 4000 or Buffermount from Bienfang depending on what I am mounting.  I mostly use Colormount.

JDP

[Doyle Yoder]

I have not tried laminating and I think framah has it right.  The difference in temps would be an issue.  I use Colormount, Fusion 4000 or Buffermount from Bienfang depending on what I am mounting.  I mostly use Colormount.

JDP

I should have mentioned I was using a roll laminator, at around 200 degrees for the heat set lam and was thinking that mounting tissue might work under the canvas being a little lower there.

I might have to get some and try it.

Doyle

[Jeff Phillips]

I should have mentioned I was using a roll laminator, at around 200 degrees for the heat set lam and was thinking that mounting tissue might work under the canvas being a little lower there.

I might have to get some and try it.

Doyle

I'd be interested in your results.  I wonder if I can laminate in the vacuum press?  If you try both together let us know how it turns out.  I think I set the Fusion 4000 to 175, only 25 degrees from the laminate temp.  I smell a science project in my future...

JDP

[Craig Murphy]

Forget about laminating in a vacu-press.  Good luck getting the laminate on without messing it up.  Creases, dust underneath etc.   Then you have to put a layer of foam between the laminate and the release paper.  In my opinion its not a doable option.

[bill t.]

Forget about laminating in a vacu-press.  Good luck getting the laminate on without messing it up.  Creases, dust underneath etc.   Then you have to put a layer of foam between the laminate and the release paper.  In my opinion its not a doable option.

Yes the laminate + mount trick gives you at least 7 surfaces that must all be scrupulously clean at the same time, with a smooth top layer surface that will clearly indicate the position of each little grain of crud down in the package.  That's more than tough enough with just laminating or dry mounting all by itself.