What the HELL is the matter with Epson? This is the very first media they have ever had created that is clearly the best in its class and they don't offer it to the largest market in the world? I have 6 clients waiting for me to use it right now and no one has even seen a show printed on it yet. And I need it right now for a show. If they don't offer this to the US and have us order it from Europe they are completely out of their minds. Someone like Canson will just reverse engineer it and offer it to us. Same ole Epson I'm afraid. Looks like they don't even make a 44" version, crap.
I tried the new Hiromi inkjet coated kozo and it has those bizarre vertical joining lines in it like the Hahnemuhle "rice paper" and if backlit is worthless to me. The sharpness, dmax, and gamut are not as good as the Epson samples either.
john
Probably Epson UK doesn't want to walk on the Epson USA distributor's toes as to why they won't sell it to USA buyers without maybe finding a UK retailer who will sell it overseas (Think "Gray market cameras" and that mess.)
As to Hiromi, they do have literally hundreds of bizarre papers in Kozo, Yukatan, Wasbi, etc. as well as LaserJet and InkJet capable ones. Odd though the guy I talked to said they have no backing paper versions, separate or peel-offs, on their inkjet paper for printers that have transport problems though. Some have heavy deckled and torn edges too which might through the skew alarm off too or cause it to have feed problems against the side feed bars. He suggested some people tape them down, but my luck with the Awagami was it swelled in the middle and the print head made contact and dragged over the humps of wet paper and smeared it. Entire sheet should be stuck down perhaps.
Freestyle Photo in LA is probably one of the largest print paper suppliers on the West Coast for gelatin (darkroom) and inkjet papers. They are also wondering why Epson isn't supplying their Kozo stuff. They used to sell Epson printers (Still sell their papers and ink.) but switched to selling Canon printers (Their favorite seems to be the ipf 6150.) due to many complaints from customers over Epson's clogging. Epson doesn't seem at all bothered either, just buy another one.
Anyway, I found some Reynold's Freezer Wrap that has what feels like a wax coating on one side of the white paper. It says plastic on the box though. Don't know if it is the same stuff as in the link above as the woman in the video says hers was old (maybe wax back then?). Guess I'll try and iron tissue paper onto it and see if it sticks and pulls off easily like a Post-It Note.
SG
Add:I tried some 25 weight tissue paper (0.042 mm thick) and it does bond and pulls off easily using the "Reynolds Freezer Wrap with Plastic Coating" (It's 18" wide paper.) ironed on with a clothes iron "Silk" setting (about 280 degrees F.). The thickness combined was 0.125 mm so maybe enough for a 3880 as anything less than 0.100mm on mine can be difficult to feed or crumple up inside.
I need to experiment more with the ironing as it wants to curl up and can wrinkle. Probably needs to be ironed on a flat hard surface rather than a soft ironing board like I did. Might need a D-roller too. Heat press maybe.
SG
