PrintMakers Friend (PMF) Part 1

At the beginning of July, I received three bottles of clear PrintMakers Friend, (PMF) quickly delivered from Spain. The total cost was €103.25 with shipping which equated to £91.04, I didn’t have to pay any import duty or VAT. PrintMakers Friend is an eco friendly non-toxic drop-in substitute for gum arabic and dichromate. Benefits include

  • Non-toxic alternative to gum and dichromate

  • Eco-friendly

  • Ready to use

  • Not affected by humidity

  • Not affected by temperature

  • Very sensitive so budget UV exposure units can be used

  • Fast exposure times

  • Fast development times

  • Developed in water

  • Abrasion resistant

  • Can be purchased with pigments ready mixed

  • Can be purchased clear so you can mix your own pigments

  • Extremely lightfast pigments

I diluted the PMF with distilled water at a ratio of 1:2 as recommended on the instruction page of the Printmakers Friend website and added my pigments of choice which were cadmium yellow Light, quinacridone rose and phthalo blue (red shade), all Daniel Smith watercolours. I opted to go for a more pastel like palate rather than the more saturated colours I use with gum.

My paper of choice was Fabriano Artistico hot pressed 300gsm which I use for gum for years. At least one person has used this paper successfully with PMF, and while Hahnemühle Platinum Rag is recommended, I’m not going to buy more paper when I have a large amount of Fabriano in my dimroom. It was recommended to size the paper before use. For gum I size with gelatine hardened with formalin and applied by brush That’s worked fine for 30+ years.

And then the problems started… I exposed a Stouffer 31 step wedge for 10 seconds and there was horrendous staining. Reading online I found that adding a clear layer of PMF on top of the gelatine sizing should solve the problem. This lessened the staining but it wasn’t good enough. On the PMF website it mentioned triethanolamine (TEOA) as an option for hardening gelatine so in case the formalin was interfering with PMF I bought some TEOA from Amazon. One person in conversation mentioned tub sizing using a trough, (thanks Jo), as opposed to using a brush so that was an option too. I decided to do a series of sizing tests. I chose the cyan pigment as it was the most staining of my chosen pigments.

The Results

A - Pre shrunk. Brush sized with PMF 1:2 unexposed

B - Pre shrunk. Brush sized with PMF 1:2 exposed

C - Pre shrunk. Two layer of brush sized with gelatine hardened with formalin. Sized with PMF 1:2 unexposed

D - Pre shrunk. Brush sized with gelatine hardened with formalin. Sized with PMF 1:2 exposed

E - Not pre shrunk. Not sized

F - Pre shrunk. Brush sized with gelatine hardened with formalin. Tub sized with gelatine hardened with TEOA

G - Pre shrunk. Tub sized with gelatine hardened with TEOA. Sized with PMF 1:2 unexposed

H - Pre shrunk. Brush sized with gelatine hardened with formalin.

I - Pre shrunk. Tub sized with gelatine hardened with TEOA. Sized with PMF 1:2 exposed

J - Pre shrunk. Tub sized with gelatine hardened with TEOA.

And the winner is C. Although it's not that clear in the photo test, C is almost perfect. The white is perfectly white, better than I normally get with gum. I’m not convinced that TEOA is as effective as a hardener as formalin. Now lets see how I get on with an EDN colour calibration chart.

John Brewer