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1:45 - Skype Call: Randy Hufford, Ink Jet Printing Specialist

First, let me mention randi is a close friend of mine has been friends for a long, long time. He has an operation in malley, hawaii, that is called student visual arts, which I'm been a part of with him for sometime we teach workshops together, but randi is one of the top experts in the world when it comes to clay printing. He's done a lot of investigation on the process of of ancient printing and finishing mounting he's helped companies come up with solutions for their finishing needs and he's an all around fun guy to work with. So hey, randy, hey, you're doing great, buddy. Awesome! Good to hear your good to see your boys. I see you're you're in your lab in the background. There, you've got your prints going? Yeah, so tell us a little bit about what you're doing and and the finishing needs that you provide. Well, what, today, what I thought would be really fun, is it? We show at some finishing solutions for canvas canvases like one of the break through things that we can print on any...

jet printing today and canvases there's like a really like a it's like there was so much demand, there's, so much perceived value on the campuses and there's so much demand with people. Like in campuses and one in campus prints it's always going to a short little description that showed how to put a coating on a canvas and then we have these really cool bars call quick bars so anybody anybody can stretch a canvas without any framing experience at all other called quick bars there and he's yeah we wrap bar that's really easy to make a really nice stretch campus and then I was going to end you showing the dual edge ripper which adds hand torn edges to print so when you're putting on fine art papers or photo paper zormat papers you can see the fibers that the printed what what used to be like the dekel print the deck of the edge before we get there I just want to point out that randy is a fine art reproduction artist and anybody out there in the business that reproduces fine art knows that is without a doubt the most difficult task and all of reproduction because he photographs art from a variety of artists especially in hawaii reproduces those and he has a studio there that he does that with and he's the best at it. So what he's come out with are a variety of finishing techniques and the ico print shell is what you want to show first is that right? Randy? I had the opportunity of being involved with henry wilhelm and he did the initial testing for it for absent when absent started a program called ultra g clay and we always a well hymns idea of somebody could come up with the water based coding. We now have quite a few other manufacturers, but one of the first products was a product called ekho print shield, which is water brace coding. And I was one of the ones that got to actually be involved with a beta test team and try the product out it's, a water based product with no fumes. You know, I've been breathing this stuff for years, and it hasn't affected me any. Okay, so here we go. But then we have the opportunity of printing on canvas and a fine art canvas and put in a stretcher bars and be able to princess player work that has a museum longevity one hundred twenty five years. And what make that possible, as you understand, is the ancient media is like a sponge it's right there sitting ready to absorb dig that comes in and you have to stop that absorption rate from happening by doing it with a product of product. That's, a water proof product thiss product here. Ico print shield has is a water based coding that totally seals the product. You can roll it or you can spray it. The only difference between the two is that spraying cost more in equipment and is a little bit more productive, but they both have the same quality rolling and spring have the same quality. It here's how I'm going to show you right now, how simple it is to roll the prints were going to do is we're going to take one of the handy containers in capri chilled, used to come in handy containers, but you couldn't shake it ok only by hand. So what happens is they now put them in courts and gallon containers like traditional paint cans, so you can have them shaken at your local hardware store. You have shaken okay, so if you do get happen to get one of the handy containers, which are really hard to get now, you haven't have one. Shake it really good and poured into your tray on. Then, once you poured into your trade coat your roller thoroughly. The product of you have you practice a lot. You can use a product that directly as it comes out the container of depending on the humidity and temperature, you might have to dilute it a little bit. Dilution slows down the drying process so of your role in the product. On it starts to dry and leaves lines most of time, your second coding and solve it. But if you want to, you're going to actually just add a little bit of water and it slows down the drying process and it makes it before you even get a smoothie coding. But you have to add a few more codes I using and do full coat with my humidity in hawaii. Ok, my humidities relative of around sixty five percent, fifty five to seventy five percent medium about sixty five percent. And I told the coat that roller and the night taken out when I rolling on no downward pressure on lee used the way to the roller. The first coding is the most important because the first code is actually really sucking the moisture out of the product as you roll it ok like this, my next go, like I had to dip three times for this my second coat I probably only have to do. One time it is the kind of rolled multiple directions but as soon as the lines don't go away when you roll over him you've rolled too much don't roll too much no downward pressure this product gives it gives a totally waterproof product you could spill red wine on you could spit I mean whatever you want you could put on this print and well white pocket even after it dries iko print shield is a product you use for your campus ok randi yeah the way the red wine test came it was actually by accident we had a whole bunch of prince laid on the table and believe it or not there was somebody in our lab that was drinking red wine it spilled all over the print and it dried overnight and the next morning we got up with a damp rag and wiped it off in a white totally off so now it's been has that proved red wine test okay so what's next randi ok our next thing that we're going to do is we're going to show there's this really cool bars is gentlemen I know his name is john morris he has a canvas stretching machine and he came up with a solution a really cool solution that anybody can stretch a campus you don't have to have any frame and experience you don't need stretch your pliers it's just a really easy solution that you guys could be outputting canvases a pop on these bars of a great finish frame product really simply and it's a I really think that I really like these bars I've been teaching and showing him for a while and anybody can take him stretch with these bars it's kind of a cool solution check it out stretching campus for a long time and to see the quality of doing that today and how easy it is is pretty fantastic so this it is about twelve minutes video so see what he has to say I'm going to show you this stellar gallery rap easy solution for stretching most clients most people when they first start to stretch campuses do a stretcher pliers a staple gun is really you know it's for the birds this's the cool thing I mean this stuff is I mean tight as a drum it has a great presentation on the back and you don't have to you stretch your pliers with it so here is the way you do you take your campus has been coded okay thiss particular campus that we have here it has a white gallery rap okay you can also do it mirrored wrap you want to add three inches in each side and what we're going to do is you have to show in the back of the print where you going to take in line the bars up so what we do is if we hold the print up to the light we can actually marked the corners ok, so we're going to mark each corner right with the campus right where the bars are we're going to drop it just a test to see if you're watching ok? And then if it's a gallery rap where you can't hold it up and see the mirrored through behind it, what you can do is you can take a piece of paper you could take a piece of paper like we take this brochure and you could make it you could make a carbon paper out of it, okay, so what you do is you take your pencil and you scribble on the paper and then when you do is you lay your corner right on that carbon paper pressed down with a point and then drag and then it actually gives you a point, ok? Okay then once you've done that, what you're going to do is you're going to take your gallery rap stretcher bars, these bars come into predetermined length, you know, eight, eleven, fourteen, sixteen, twenty and when you do is you order a box of you to the size that you want this particular one, we're going to eleven's and we're going to fourteen's so what we're going to d'oh is this bar has a square in a one side for the backing like what you saw in this print through the backing is totally flush case of the backside is for the backing and the front side has around around molding toe hold the campus from touching this edge so we're going to do is we're gonna lay that on to the four sides we're going to center right on those marks and then went to a senator in the marks were going to make sure that these corners air touching each other and then when we once we got them touching each other we have a perfect alignment we're going to take a pencil we're going to draw out ah forty five degree angle from each corner going to do that to all four corners thing you're gonna take a straight edge and you're going to take a cut across at a forty five degree angle to take off the excess canvas way do that from all four corners what's really cool about these stretcher bars is a lot of my clients get overwhelmed by the what it takes you know the ability that it takes to do a regular standard stretch these bars make it so easy to make a perfect gallery rap stretch that it's ah it's actually really scary because it's so easy okay, now what we're going to d'oh it's going to move the bars after the side we're gonna grab our says is we're going to cut at the forty five to remark across each corner cutting off eats cornered a forty five degree mark after cut off of the forty five degree mark the mark that we did it the forty five we're going to cut up to that point I think this is that this is the only cutting you got to do is the lines that we just did so when you cut that mark to that point okay and when we lay that back down we're going to take each of our stretch of ours and we have some things called they're called glue dots ok the's little blue dots were going to do is we're going to add one blue dot teach ad so that means a total of a two for each corner and all we do is center that right on the bar and at a glue dot center right on the bar add the glue dot center right on the bar had a glue dot that one already had one on it senator under the bar at a glue dot way need a couple more here this's just a really easy solution because what you can do with gallery rap canvases first off as a photographer you can print a finished product as a campus gallery rap and it it has tremendous perceived value and it costs you pennies compared to what you charge retail for this product so what we're going to do is we're gonna add a dot for each of these corners but this is just a major breakthrough product because it makes it so easy for all of us to do gallery rapps. So what I've done is I've added a gallery, right dot teach corner okay, now that I've done a gala wrapped dod to each corner, I'm gonna lay the bars back out right to where we had him before, right to we cut him. So I lay those bars out, liam out. Exactly we want in. The reason we wanna lay them out is because we need a little template of when we pull this adhesive off of war to place it. Okay, I said, now that I have those back into position now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna pull off there's adhesive on these bars. Now I'm gonna take and pull out the adhesive in the bar, okay, that exposes the he said, I'm gonna drop that right down in that particular location. And the question I get is what happens that put in the wrong spot. You could just I've already pulled him up a couple of times and stuck him back down. That it's works great. So I pulled this one off line this corners up. Like that one up but I'm wrong so here we just pull the thing off so I lined their loans up for my template a word a place everything again I put it on backwards okay? And I did that on purpose I totally did that on purpose for you guys can see what happens if you mess up because you can't mess up with this system okay? So I'm gonna go ahead and pull off this next piece of it he said pull out the next piece of adhesive you may think is keep the rounded edge which is your front towards the middle of the print okay, we're gonna line that up best it down we're going to their next piece lying it up press it down and then what you gonna do is you're gonna pull your corners up what you just cut and press a bunch of blue dots so you press each corner onto the glue dots okay, so I pressed on teach blue dot okay, now what I'm going to do is there's there's thumbnails he's there called thumbnails he's here these little wedgies we need for these so I drop out for these out of the bag and I need a hammer ok? And as you could you pull this up as you pull turn these up line ahmad and you put your little thumb mill and there you tap it in with a hammer it tightens the canvas and totally stretches it for you it's amazing thing so we just tight pull that up title compound that little thumbnail in pull it up put that little thumbnail in pull it up a little thumbnail in no notice see how tight that that is now I mean that's totally perfectly tight and the corners are dis spectacular you're gonna love it. Okay, now what we need to do is we need you to push seaside's down okay? And when we push these sides down like this when I didn't prepare correctly because you need an ancient after the side an inch and a half for the back island did it and she to have for the sides and another half inch for the for the back so in this situation we could still save it way just take a hand stample gun and staple that down and then what we did is we way have a data in the back that we can take a piece of foam core and cover the backing by adding this backing that gives a vapor barrier to the back and makes it a museum quality and then we could take a brown brown museum taper framers tape and tape these backs by taping these backs it just gives a really clean presentation similar to like what you saw in this print ok see how that tasted like right now this is the two inch tape this is the one inch tape, and I'm putting down right this moment, but it just gives such a clean presentation. You can either do. Now you can either add a saw a little a jigsaw, a little jigsaw hangar in the back. Or you can add some d hangers, and I'll show you a d hangar and use do that de hangar with a with a screw gone or a phillips screwdriver. Ok, so, here's, what we did is we did this, and then we put on, we put out some d hangers, put a screw in with a d hanger, and then that dad can be added with a wire. So all we did is took some framers wire. Put that into their d hangar. Come around, go through that d hangar. And then once that is pulled in tight d hangar, we go ahead and twisted around. Wait, come to the other side. Add that little stretchy to it. And this is make such a perf professional framed look product. But you, as a photographer and artist, can produce a product that's so economical, but has so much perceived value. So it's, it's, actually a product that you have control of, of how you produce, how you print, and it has a great great great perceived value so I'm gonna just cut the access off of there so there's my wire in the back there is my front finished product this's my wife edge instead of a gallery route which is just a beautiful product gallery wraps are like a product that is great income thing for you as a photographer to display you work and show presentations check out these quick bars okay mandy thank you for that oh my gosh and think about it all the history of photography this is a greatest time to be alive and all the history of photography as his photographers always controlled the finished product it was until the fifties with the introduction of color from kodak that that control was taken away now we can afford our own printers and have control again I'm I'm really actually excited I love it I love photography I love making prints it's a blast and I have friends like you eddie you're a blast man well thanks for raining for sharing all this information with us is there anything else you want to share with us today I did bring a dual edge ripper it's a device I have a short little video clip that shows this device you add dekel edges to prince I have galleries in new york that that they picked a certain model of this and do all their prints with a specific edge for everything in the whole gallery and they war one out there wore one of these things out and they called me back and we kept designing new ones. So we actually brought back some of the new ones. Check out the short little clip on adding a dekel or hand torn edge to your prince. Okay, let's, take a look at that. And then I think there's some questions from the audience. So this is your do allege ripper that you've had this for ten years. Media's with hand tourney edges really displays the quality of the fine art media's fine art media, so usually one hundred percent cotton and the fibers of the paper is what gives it to perceived value. Besides it being a museum quality product, we have museums from all over the world that are using this the duel edge ripper did take a fine art media and put the deck allege on it. This media is all you do is you take one of these three rivers, we have an original that has two edges of the mohr of a slight edge way haven't extreme would two edges that really extreme edges to match when you have real extreme subjects like a dandelion, fly it flour or sunflower, something that matches that edge and we have the classic it has a medium to medium edge is what you do is you take these edges of these media's you lay them on the paper's parallel to the edge and you tear up against it, so what I'm going to do is I would lay this on the table pushing on that edge and then tear up against that edge if I terror with the image up gives a white reveal of a tear it with the image down that means that I lie in a dub I line up, look at the paper lineup the edge, tear it down and then there's no white edge in that reveal hopes I messed up you've got to take and do this correctly, so notice is a white edge in this reveal no edge in this reveal. So remember it's do allege ripper if you want to add perceived value to you find our prince at a hand tourney edge that's the product to use really? I'm so impressed with all you do, you've always impressed me with the work that you do and the finishing that you've come up with you you're always a mentor of mine and you're always doing something innovative with helping developed like thie, the coding and another new luminous thing that we're not going to have time to talk about today but let's see if there's any questions for you in the queue there, okay? There sure are I'm going to go for it lots of questions about the ico print shields so first of all, is that applied? Do you apply that all the way up to the edge? Is bruce from new york wants to know that? And do you do both sides to prevent working and human environments? If you apply it to the back side, you get excessive shrinkage of the canvas and the tests that we did with the test we did with henry wilhelm, but that that's, the reason you put the backing board on it. The reason you have the backing board on that access of vapor barrier and they actually, according to of the gentleman that does preservation for framing, who teaches preservation techniques for framing he doesn't want you to seal the back of the campus on lee the front of the canvas. And yes, we go all the way to the edges because we want the gallery wrapped also be protected, too, because when I into the half gallery, rap is on a wall does tense, collecting that edge, and I have some prints that have been a five or eight years that I just pulled some displays down. I could take it down, greg, wipe the edge on looks brand news or yes, you want to steal the edges too. Grades are great, thank you a question from theresa for you, randi is can equal print shield be used? On the prince that are mounted on campus by labs and also on the digital canvas used by labs for gallery wraps also is it glass or math finish? The campus that is designed for is a water resistant are waterproof canvass. There are some older canvases that are not waterproof or water resistant and it would not work in that type of canvas unless you sprayed it with a solvent coding first and a lot of the photo labs are using eco prince shield you would just have to ask him or if you're asking when, say I'll put your canvas can you use iko on the way to test it is take a corner the canvas and put it under running water if the ink runs off, then that means it's not a water resistant waterproof canvass and you would have with the solvent product before you put the water based product on it. The product comes in three surfaces gloss, satin and matt and what we do is we use the difference is going to sad cannabis. You know a glossier sat on campus and amat campuses it's more expensive to produce her satin or gloss candace. And once you coat a canvas with glossy, you cannot tell the difference between a mat canvas and a glossy campus once it's coded and since we wanna kowtow campuses, there was a lot of people that that say oh this campus isn't mita coding or this you know this is a solvent base product doesn't coding but they're finding out because he the inject receptor coding and because the canvases are like a sponge they're absorbing the environment you know the ozone and contaminants environment they're finding out that all types of prints sealed give greater greater longevity ability to wipe off what we found out is that the mat campus if we print on matt campus juicy about twenty or thirty percent more economical than a gloss canvas and if we do two coats of glossy we get a satin ok I do three coats and get a gloss but four coast to get a super high gloss so have you always were printing super high gloss images and it would probably be more economical to use a sad nor glass campus because it only takes two coats but lost on a satin campus to obtain a high gloss that makes sense okay so we normally we mostly use the gloss coding and applying one to two coats on it matt canvas or three or four coats if it's required for a high gloss that makes sense to you guys and then for mats we just doing two coats of matt coding and we get great results with it. Very good another question about the stretcher bars randy can you clarify where our audience khun get similar stretcher bars for their projects sure that the uh I just set up a web store called limited editions maui that list those bars and the website quick bars it's quick you know and I'll put up out you put a web site up there too so you can actually see the link for that okay from fashion tv for fine art prints or canvas is declare a the best process any other options if we can't find you play lab labs or printers in our country so what do you guys think about that? I'm not for sure with what the question is are you asking is a different type of printers yeah maybe I think maybe he's asking so he's in single finger he or she is and it is he hello hey he's in singapore so maybe he's asking about different sources or if he is able to get these do the same thing kind of where he is that makes right now those the awe curious based printers they're babel buyem yepsen and by cannon both of those printers air really x easily accessible and they're really easy to find those printers I don't know if they maybe he doesn't know a source for them or not but if you just go on the web you can actually find cannon and absence hp also makes him too but the high quality that really high quality obvious based printers are manufactured by absent and cannon or the two manufacturers for those thank you already found my question and it was by memories by elisa what was was that just regular phone core that you put on the back and by doing that did it make it museum quality or was it some sort of special foam core that you use I just standard phone core three sixteenths black phone courts is set standard phone courts all that it does and when they did what the backing does is first off it stops like get those and cockroaches and spiders to live in the back of the picture and it actually makes a vet a vapor barrier to the back of the print which they say that's what gives it the longevity all right randi well you are a wealth wealth of knowledge I just love it I don't know if we have anything else but I think it's about time for our next segment randi thank you for being with us today and yeah question is have how again can people you toast your full name again and how you spell that and where can people find you? Randy hufford your find my educational dvds on our educational site which is institute of visual arts and that's why I like institute b aye aye aye maui dot com that's the site that has off a short video clip all of my dvds and all my educational dvds are on that side I've a maori dot com thie quick bars have found on limited editions. Maui dot com. The ico is that iko prince shield, dot com? And do allege ripper, is that dual edge ripper dot com.