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The Brayer

matt_isserstedt

Diamond
Joined
Dec 15, 2003
Location
suburbs of Ann Arbor, MI, USA
No...not a donkey....


The mini-roller used for spreading dykem blue on the surface plate...we had one or two in Savannah and I forgot to ask where this handy device was purchased?

TIA
 
Matt,

Interesting, I have always figured there must be a better way. Seems so simple now that you just put it into words.

What about a printers ink roller?

I will be looking forward to the answer to this one.

Take Care, Ken
 
DO NOT buy the Speedball rollers available at Michael's that have the plastic frame with the removeable roller. Garbage. They're so lumpy and malformed that spreading anything outside of ketchup on your burger is damn near impossible.

Matt, for local, try Dick Blick or anyone else under art supplies that seems to cater to real artists, and go and put your warm little fingers on them.

Have fun,

Blue-fingered Rob
 
Hi All,

Artist Supply,

OK, so what is the consistency/hardness of one required for Dykem. Hard, Soft, Tacky?

I don't know of a Dick Bliss, how about Hobby Lobby?

Thanks, Ken
 
Dumb question:

I am perfectly familiar with teh device in question....
But....

I have found that one has to be extremely careful about dust, etc when bluing up a surface. Those darn brayers were seemingly invented to transfer little tiny lumpy things rom one surface to another. One little &^%# thing 1 thou thick, and your markings are all messed up.

If you are doing block printing, no big deal.... That's what the brayers are for.

But for bluing up something, it seems that wiping would automatically remove crud, and those dang rollers might "automatically" transfer it!

I use the wiping method....

Is there a trick to using the roller?
 
That is good to know....thank you. At least one place that the side effects are good.....!
 
No, at Savannah, I was the one getting up the crud. The rollers were just moving it around. I think that's one problem some of the guys were having with their work. The surface plate was getting pretty dirty.

Every time I got ready to print, I had to clean cast iron crumbs off the surface plate. I do like the roller for applying the bluing, but I'll still wipe it off with a palm to make sure it is clean.

All it takes is a single near-microscopic flake of metal or even a fine piece of lint to make a print useless once you start getting things down to the bone. Any time I get a totally whacked out print after working a piece down and having it looking good, I go look for the hairline swirly mark on the plate and it's always there.

I also find I can thin the coating out best by hand as I get closer and want to lighten the print to reveal where the work needs to be concentrated.
 








 
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