Die Spotting Ink in Canada

Hey everyone,

I've started scraping my first project. The ink I'm using is the Charbonnel Aqua Wash. I'm finding it very difficult; being too thick, and then drying very quickly. After a lot of fighting I can get it to print decently, but the results are hit and miss.

I've looked for Canode blue in Canada, no luck so far. I did come across PRM Pro Die Spotting Fluid. Is it worth abandoning the Charbonnel for now and moving to the PRM fluid? Does anyone have any input on the Charbonnel in use?

Any help is appreciated! Thanks in advance.

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bhickman173 said:

Hey everyone,

I've started scraping my first project. The ink I'm using is the Charbonnel Aqua Wash. I'm finding it very difficult; being too thick, and then drying very quickly. ........

Click to expand...

I could say the same about Canode. I use it, but I actually like every bit of everything about Dykem HiSpot blue better, except the "Smurf factor". That alone has me using Canode, but I do not think I can do as good a job. Adequate, maybe, but HiSpot blue is better.

I've tried what has been suggested... the line between "too dry" and "wet and smeary" is almost non-existent. Goes from the one to the other FAST in dry weather, like winter.

The same thing that I do not like about HiSpot, is what makes it work so well. It's so fine that it stains my pores and cracked skin, so I cannot get it cleaned off. That's a problem with no solution.

I use the Charbonnel aqua wash for applying directly to the straight edge then printing that to the machine way. My climate in Spokane is very dry and I had a terrible time with common acrylic inks you get from a craft store. They're designed to dry fast which screws a scraper, either too fast or too runny if I thin it with window cleaner. At $~14 a bottle, I just bought Canode from Darpa for use on the surface plate. It works well and is not too expensive.

I like Canode better than Charbonnel and it’s cheaper. Not sure where in Canada the OP is, but buying from Ed Dyjak 248-684-4260 and shipping to just across the 49th was easy till covid. If the OP wants to PM me I might know more depending on where in Canada he is.

L7

I did use a prussian blue oilpaint from Talens from their Rembrand line They also have a van Gogh line which is no good
I find it as good or better as Dykem except it dries over time (A day or so)
Talens is available in Canada Calgery and Edmonton I found

Peter

I have been testing arcrylic paint they sell at Walmart in arts and crafts section. It costs $2.50 a tube. It works better as a high lighter diluted with Windex. I also like Dykem high spot, but hate how it stains my fingers, so I use Canode for the most part.

Personally, I like the Charbonnel, mostly because of the intensity of Prussian blue pigment. Definitely, it's quite a challenge to dilute it the right way, to allow to spread it thin enough, but not being runny. I really like the fact that you can spread it very thin and I don't find it drying significantly faster than Canode.
Generally I use Canode (alone or mixed with a little Charbonnel) for roughing, then switch to Charbonnel alone for finishing. A tube of Charbonnel goes a very long way (unless you lend it to somebody else).

I know, there is more risk of embedding dust and dirt, but it looks like the best strategy for spreading it, is to smear it with a piece of shammy, then further spread it with a bryer roll.

Paolo

PS One thing I haven't done yet, but will be next, is to try diluting it with a little bit of dish soap.

JST said:

I could say the same about Canode. I use it, but I actually like every bit of everything about Dykem HiSpot blue better, except the "Smurf factor". That alone has me using Canode, but I do not think I can do as good a job. Adequate, maybe, but HiSpot blue is better.

I've tried what has been suggested... the line between "too dry" and "wet and smeary" is almost non-existent. Goes from the one to the other FAST in dry weather, like winter.

The same thing that I do not like about HiSpot, is what makes it work so well. It's so fine that it stains my pores and cracked skin, so I cannot get it cleaned off. That's a problem with no solution.

Click to expand...

?

It doesn't need a "solution" if it isn't a problem.

Scraping is not ordinarily done to rotating machnery. It is perfectly legitimate to glove-up.

If you are allergic to blue nitrile, try clear poly or cloudy natural latex. Boxes of fifty or a hundred are ALWAYS around this house. Handling garbidge, painting, stripping paint, tending the elderly or infants, not "just" preventing Dykem red, white, and blue from ever reaching skin.

Canada?

Cromwells - in the UK - ship more than one colour of "Stuarts Micrometer" Engineers spotting compound. To the USA, even.

Canada should be no problem.

Be aware it is supplied THICK in each tin. Up to the user to ration some out and adjust that OUT of the tin with a skosh of mixing in of oil, etc.

Dykem, blue, red - wotever you prefer - is also an online ordered item.

Paolo_MD said:

I know, there is more risk of embedding dust and dirt, but it looks like the best strategy for spreading it, is to smear it with a piece of shammy, then further spread it with a bryer roll.

Paolo.

Click to expand...

I hold the roller at a angle to smear it out It still rolls a bit Then spread with the roller at normal position

Peter

I just wrote about this on another forum....here is what Charbonel looks like. I also mix a 1/4" dab of it with a 1" dia. squirt of Canode...stirred together. I also like the darker color as Paolo said. I used Dykem for years too, but wore it in my stained fingers. To do it correctly you have to rub your hand over the bluing to assure you don't have debris in it. It's nice to see some of my students helping here too :-) I have been experimenting with the Acrylic paint too. It is cheap - $2.00 a tube at Walmart. When I was in Austria teaching scraping classes we tested several brands. We preferred the Dykem ( 3rd pic bottom) but it stained your fingers, nose, ear, lol where ever you touched...lol I also like to dab it on the plate and use a paint pan and soft foam paint roller to apply the diluted yellow highlighter Canode. Tyrone sent me a tin of Stuarts engineering blue they sell in the UK and it was OK and water soluble too, so it washed off your hands I see it is available in Canada too: Stuarts Micrometer Engineers Marking Blue (1 Tin, Blue)- Buy Online in Canada at canada.desertcart.com. ProductId : 110954977.

The last time I bought Canode spotting ink, it came from an industrial supplier in Windsor Ontario.
So long ago I forgot the name, but I was put on to them by the sales person at Dapra in Connecticut.

A 4oz bottle of that stuff goes a Looooonngggg way ;-))

Peter

The biggest problem with Canode is that it does not seem to thin out well. At a certain point, it appears to just stop marking the other part, where Dykem just keeps going and going.

I tried propylene glycol (the safer antifreeze) but it was not very easy to get to that sweet spot of being "grease-like", which Dykem is naturally. It did not actually happen, there was just a sort of range between too smeary, and hardened non-marking film.

Probably there is no way for a water-based material to actually work. There needs to be a non-drying but water-mixable thickener to take the place of the grease in Dykem. Canode does not quite have that, there is something there, but it does not seem to "carry" the pigment well, and it does dry out.

thermite said:

?

It doesn't need a "solution" if it isn't a problem.

.........

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If you do much scraping, you will rapidly (or at least I do) find that as with nearly anything besides cleaning a public commode, the gloves cause more hassle than they help. Very hard to work in them, and in some ways MORE staining material gets left in odd places around.

Like others I used Charbonnel mixed with Canode. However, I have stopped using the Charbonnel because it has a specific problem that happened to me. I would be interested to hear if it is common or if somehow I did something wrong.

The Charbonnel seemed to be impregnated with big flat clumps of pigment. They went on like flecks of mica or some other thin flaky stuff. In between was great, but I'd have to pick out each of those flakes (some of them were 1/8" diameter) or they'd skid around when printing and basically wreck everything.

metalmagpie

JST said:

If you do much scraping, you will rapidly (or at least I do) find that as with nearly anything besides cleaning a public commode, the gloves cause more hassle than they help. Very hard to work in them, and in some ways MORE staining material gets left in odd places around.

Click to expand...

I do as little scraping as I can get away with, actually!



No apologies. I don't actually class it as "entertainment" nor a never-ending saga of time wasted. You doos only what you must.

I'll presume you follow the Herman King methods, then?

I do not.

Given that Herr Pelz taught an entirely different way of restoring a worn surface? His own? Learned from others? Never even crossed my mind to ask! So similar to how stone was worked I wasn't aware there had ever BEEN any other way at the time.



Sooo... I'll grant that I probably have but ten-percent as much handling of, or exposure to, spotting compound as the Herman King regime requires for any given surface.

None of it EVER gets spread directly onto a surface plate, for example.

Ever.

If-even one HAS a surface plate. Given it is actually "optional".

Not interested in arguing with "newer" fossils over the methods they consider some sort of "religion", but...

I SUSPECT the more efficient method was driven by First World War SHORTAGES? Germany was starving. For real, not as a figure of speech. And had gone bankrupt. A Mercedes aero engine was taking longer to build than it had days if not mere hours - to live once put into the air.

War over, Germany's aero industry was basically shut DOWN. So much for his immediate postwar role in fuel-injection and supercharger R&D prototype crafting.

Herr Pelz found work scraping-in brand new large lathes. Which were being shipped not to German factories but to American ones, rather. As "War Reparations". At the expense of a bankrupt and hungry Germany! Not to the recipient.

Weimar Reich a hungry disaster inflating? He figured if the brand-new machine tools were going to a new future in America? That's where his new future was as well.

Sold his prized Mannlicher rifle with "hook" mounted 'scope for a WHEELBARROW load of paper currency. Beat-feet directly to where his bride was holding a place in line at the steamship office. Bought one-way passage for two, and it was not "First Class".

Desperation drives ingenuity.

Next time he set foot in Germany? It was to take delivery at the factory of a brand-new Mercedes 4-door luxury sedan, tour Western Europe.. so it could be imported at lower tariffs.. as a "used car".



His "backwards" method works well even in time of plenty, needs but a fraction of the physical effort, makes near-zero mess, and saves time?

Why, ever, would I give any of that up to play French pigmented finger-painting artist, develop "belly push" muscles, and "always feel with bare hands"?

Not as if it was my WIFE that was worn out of line or plane is it?

As happens, I am more than delighted there ain't a flat surface anywhere on the lovely gal!

Hello metalmagpie

I wonder if your Charbonelle got froze. I couldn't find Prussian blue, so settled for Ocean Blue and it does the job. No clumps that I have to pick off before printing.

Mark

I’ve tried several water soluble inks and keep coming back to Canode. To me, it spreads easier and thinner than others, it is more consistent, and I can polish out high spots nicer. This extra rubbing does seem to put some wear on my straightedges, which do need tuning every year or so.

I started, as instructed, mixing Canode with Windex prior to spreading on plate or straight edge, but find I get most consistent results with more energetic rubber brayer use and just more ‘skidding’ (like Peter said) of undiluted Canode. Also find frequent washing of brayer helps.

For me, and eyes that are not as good now, I find it’s less the type of dye or method of application, and more how good the lighting is. Angling good lights on project from behind my shoulder seems to allow me to see polished spots best.

L7

metalmagpie said:

Like others I used Charbonnel mixed with Canode. However, I have stopped using the Charbonnel because it has a specific problem that happened to me. I would be interested to hear if it is common or if somehow I did something wrong.

The Charbonnel seemed to be impregnated with big flat clumps of pigment. They went on like flecks of mica or some other thin flaky stuff. In between was great, but I'd have to pick out each of those flakes (some of them were 1/8" diameter) or they'd skid around when printing and basically wreck everything.

metalmagpie

Click to expand...

Ironically, I had a very similar problem a few years ago with Canode. If I recall correctly, that happened when we hosted the scraping class at Tuckahoe.

Paolo

The Canode Mfg. had an issue with a batch of the Blue about 4 or 5 years ago. They were purchased by a holding company and things slipped for a while. I used to buy it from them, but now buy it from Ed Dyjak. He buys 5 gallon pails and rebottles it. They didn't mill (mix) it enough and it had small clumps about .010". That's when I started to use a hard rubber brayer after applying it with the soft foam roller. It worked ok after you rolled it out with the hard roller. The new batches have been better. I now use the brayer all the time as it does spread it out thinner when I am finishing.

Has anyone tried Beechem High Low spotting compound? The Beechem products, both the spotting compound and layout fluids, are made in Michigan by Kelley Labs. The website is Beechem Layout Fluid, High Low, Remover,

Ive never heard of them. I'll call them and see if I can get a sample and let you know.