Watercolor paper stretching
Gerry Attricks
<pottedmeatproduct...@user-2ivfldr.dialup.mindspring.com>,
pottedme...@ix.netcom.com says...
>Brown paper tape would have given me the perfectly flat surface I sought,
>but I wanted the paper's edges to be pristine.
I got slammed in this forum once before by
the un-believers when I said that I've always
used brown packaging tape with the water
active glue for gluing down my pre-soaked
watercolor paper. It's so easy to remove after
the painting is finished - all that is required
is spot soaking with a water-loaded sponge to
soften the glue again and peel the paper tape
off. The original deckle edge is totally
unaffected.
Erik A. Mattila
It's gum arabic, the wonder-glue that has been in use for at least 5000
tears. Completely water souluable. You can even eat it (and you do, in
several food products like Coca Cola et al on and on.) It's used also
to make bombs and bullets, binders in inks, paints and cosmetics,
ancient Egyptian mummys, offset printing fountain solution,
pharmaceuticals, textiles and the list goes on and on.
Usama bin Laden has his fingers in the gum arabic industry in Africa,
helping to fund terrorists, and the long drawn-out civil war in the
Sudan (the major exporter) causes the price of the gum to skyrocket,
causing the US State Department to define it as a national security
issue. The highest quality comes from the Acacia Senegal trees in North
Africa, but many other Acacias produce commercial grade gum.
What a bunch of trivia, eh? I wanted to know because I couldn't figure
out why packing tape was so expensive. Boy, was I surprised.
Erik
keith o'connor (tinmangallery.com
keith
Erik A. Mattila <emat...@oco.net> wrote in message
news:3DBB7C1F...@oco.net...
Gerry Attricks
says...
>
>x-no-archive: yes
>
>May I post that my experience has been that the paper
>refused to unstick, no matter how long I apply the sponge?
>What paper are you using and what is the name of the
>maker of the glued paper?
>
>Thur
Okay. Let's try a little logic here. If the kind
of paper tape you use has a glue that REQUIRES
water wetting in order for it to be "sticky" and
seal, then it's only logical that water will
later make it "un-stick" when it's rewetted.
I'm referring to ordinary packaging paper tapes
that were the forerunners of today's cellophane
packaging tapes with self-stick adhesives that
are NOT water soluble.
Gerry Attricks
>I wanted to know because I couldn't figure
>out why packing tape was so expensive. Boy, was I surprised.
>
>Erik
I wonder if the expense isn't at least
partly due to the scarcity of this paper
tape now that the self-stick tapes have
taken over? Supply and demand...?
Willa Catheter
dkra <pottedme...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>x-no-archive: yes
>
>How to stretch an Imperial-sized (22" x 30") sheet of watercolor paper?
>
>I wanted to preserve the deckle, so I soaked it in the bathtub for a few
>minutes, then laid it out on the board. I secured it with eight (8)
>Boston Clip No. 4 bulldog clips.
>
>Problems: the first sheet of paper (which I had to discard, due to a
>defect[1]) started showing tiny rust spots where the metal made contact
>with the paper. So on the second sheet I had to use strips of paper towel
What about those big plastic clips that they sell so you can close
up a bag of crisps? They don't rust, cover a long area, don't squeeze
so hard as to warp the paper, etc....
--
"Arguing on the internet is like competing in the Special Olympics - even
if you win you're still retarded."
Kramer Wetzel, home of the Texas Shakespeare Massacre
Erik A. Mattila
Ouch! You hit a raw nerve. I'm a dinosaur - old enough to remember the
days when kraft gum tape was all there was. BTW, it's biodegradable,
unbleached paper doesn't flush out toxics into the environment, and in a
pinch, you can eat the gum arabic. It's very nutritious. (You can eat
the paper also, but the work of digesting cellulous is more than the
gain, so you'll lose weight. That's why cows aren't fed straw.
It's still easy to find - any packing supply company sells it plus the
dispersers for hard-core packing operations. What's changed is
consummerism. That's my "raw nerve" part. So when you go wherever to
buy tape, all that is available is the chinchy little rolls of plastic
crap. Foot for foot it's about a hunnerd times the cost of kraft gum.
So we get victimized. Thank our lucky stars for the Internet, though,
because you can order it from several sources. Just type in 'Kraft Gum
Paper Tape" in Google.
Hardware and Stationary stores are vanishing under the pressure of
distribution rings that supply the K-Marts, Ace Hardware Stores and so
on. In the good old days if you went to a hardware store, the inventory
really reflected the acumen and resourcefullness of the owner. You
ended up getting a lot more consummer choices than today.
Erik
>
Gerry Attricks
>Ouch! You hit a raw nerve. I'm a dinosaur - old enough to remember the
>days when kraft gum tape was all there was.
As for being a dinosaur, I'll match my
eggs against yours any day.
I worked for several years in my teens
packaging stuff in boxes for shipping.
I think I was called a "shipping clerk."
There were in those days tape dispensers that
had a water reservoir that one simply
pulled off the roll by hand, the tape
passing over a sponge. Then there were
the REALLY fancy automatic dispensers
that required electricity and had a telephone
style dial that when dialed reeled off the
equivalent length of tape. Thirty inches
required three turns on the Ten hole, etc.
I've seen the tape still sold in some
of the Office Depot stores, Home Depot
builder supply stores, and from Art Supply
catalogs so I know it's still available.
In fact, I seem to recall that something
similar is used for dry-wall construction
and in wall papering.
Gerry Attricks
says...
>Sold under the brandname of "Butterfly" and described as "Gumstrip"
>made by Wiggins Teape in Wigan, England, and purchased from an
>Art shop.
I would suggest you contact that
company, explain your use of their
tape to them, and ask for their advice.
It certainly doesn't sound like any
plain gummed kraft paper packaging
tape that's been discussed so far in
this thread.