BLOCKING, STAINING AND LETTERING It has long been the custom, with the large portion of negatives made for commercial work, to block these negatives, that is, paint out or opaque them so as to render the background pure white in the finished print, but the tendency now, in high-class studios, is to do away with blocking as much as possible.
However, blocking of negatives will be in demand for some time to come, and there are many photographers who have considerable• difficulty in doing this work. The principal trouble has been possibly that they did not have the proper equipment. For success in blocking, it is quite necessary to have a good ruling pen, a transparent triangle and an irregular curve and a good lettering pen, all of which articles can be bought under these names at almost any artist's supply store, and a few good brushes, which most photographers generally have on hand, anyhow.
A word about this ruling pen—a cheap ruling pen is an abomination—there fore, the best that you can find will be found the cheapest in the long run. Keep it clean at all times, and occasionally apply a drop of good oil to the set screw on the side. A little care will be amply rewarded. A good brand of pen for lettering is Gillott's, No. 303.
A satisfactory opaque, to buy it ready prepared, is expensive, but probably it also is the cheapest in the end, for I notice a good many of the large com mercial studios buy their opaque prepared. There are several good brands on the market, Victor, Alvord's and Eastman's being possibly the best. If you prefer to make your own opaque, the following is a good formula.
Procure a small jar of Indian Red (ground in water)—Heath and Milli gan's is good. To the Indian Red, first add a little water and after thoroughly stirring, add a little dextrine solution, which is made by taking about two ounces of powdered dextrine (obtainable at a drug store) and heating it in a double boiler with eight to ten ounces of water, until it is thoroughly dissolved. When dissolved, add a few drops of oil of cloves, carbolic acid or any similar pre servative, and store away in a tightly corked bottle. Add enough of this solu tion of dextrine to the Indian Red to make it spread nicely. Try it out on a piece of glass with a brush and if it does not spread well, acid a tablespoonful of common table syrup, such as Karo. With a little experimenting, hack and forth, you can get this opaque very smooth and as it dries very quickly, is a really good opaque, although it does not keep quite as well as the prepared opaque.
Another opaque used considerably on films is made as follows : To drop black (ground in Japan drier) add turpentine until it is tl.e proper consistency. This makes a somewhat more expensive opaque than the first formula, but because of the absence of water, is the much more satisfactory opaque for the films, as the films will not cockle.
Still another formula which is much used by particular and careful work men on small things, especially those who apply opaque on the negative with a brush, is to take Windsor & Newton's oil color lampblack and dilute with tur pentine and apply directly on the negative with a brush, as this kind of opaque does not flow very freely from a ruling pen.
About the next requisite in this work is a good blocking stand. There arc several different kinds used by the commercial workers. Some seem to prefer the horizontal type which is nothing more, usually, than a big plate box with a sheet of ground-glass set over the top with an electric light in the bottom of the box. The negative is put on this ground-glass and blocked in a horizontal position. Those who use a brush exclusively seem to prefer this position, as more light is thrown onto the negative from the workers' side.
Others use a nearly upright stand, with electric light in the back and which, to me, is far the better position. A good light for either type of stand is a 75 or 100-watt blue bulb placed hack of a sheet of flashed opal glass and gives really ideal conditions.
To proceed to block a .plate negative, go around the outline of the object with the ruling pen for the straight sides, using the transparent triangle, and for the curved spaces the irregular curve, while, for intricate places, use either a pen or a small brush.
Sounds easy, and I think really is easy and I cannot understand why some people have such hard times doing this, as it ordinarily is a kid's job. After the outline is completed, fill in the rest of the plate, using a heavier brush. Some shops fill in an inch or two of the negative with opaque and then use post-office paper masks for the rest of it, but as the mask gets torn off and somebody possibly has to make a new one about every time an order is printed, it would seem cheaper to opaque clear to the edge in the first place.
Opaquing film presents a few difficulties, among which are cockling of the film and slipping and sliding of the film on the -blocking stand. The way to overcome these is to bind your film negative on to a sheet of clear glass, same size, and then proceed as with a plate, and eliminate the cockling, as mentioned above, by using turpentine instead of water in the opaque.
When the opaque crawls and refuses to go on evenly—caused usually by grease on the negative, this can be overcome by rubbing the place with a cloth or piece of cotton moistened with saliva or alcohol.
Illustration No. 69 is a blocked job of a motor truck. The point I wish to bring out by this illustration is the blocking of the ground, of which this is a good example, and which was done by simply following the shadow of the truck on the ground.