A brayer (rubber roller) for spreading spotting blue

[MuellerNick]

Hi!

While I was scraping along today, I got upset by my braider. It's no longer cylindrical (hollow in the middle). I envisioned putting it into the cylindrical grinder ... then it came to my mind, that I have thrown away a rubber drum out of a toner unit of a laser printer two days ago. Diving the bin, found it again.
Tried it out, works like a charm.
A few strokes with a very fine grit 3M, and it even worked better!

The old braider will take up the space in the bin now.


Nick

[Michael G]

Interesting idea Nick - do you run it with a handle or like a rolling pin? We tried rollers at Scrapefest '12, but I must admit I felt that using fingers gave a better idea of the amount of blue on the plate.

Michael
(are you going to throw up a picture or two?)

[Dave J]

Thanks for the tip, it's something most of us can put our hands on pretty easily.

Dave

[MuellerNick]

I don't like spreading the blue with the finger. Not that I fear the blue (you end with really dirty hands after a day of scraping, I don't mind either), but it doesn't spread the blue evenly.
I experimented with fine leather and Velcron, but the roller simply works best.

The surface of the drum of the toner unit is very sensible. Wrap it in masking tape or the like while cutting/facing!

You can make a handle out of flat iron, no big deal I think. :;


Nick

[MuellerNick]

Addition why I prefer the braider:
You might argue, that spreading the blue with your thump doesn't matter. The fine peaks you get will be spread out after the first bluing pass. That's right, but as soon as you do have to refresh the blue, it starts all over again.
What I do when I get to the detail is refresh the blue without picking up new blue from my "pickup area" on the surface plate. I just roll over the area where I spot. This pulls out a wee bit of blue out of the fine holes of the granite (that's why granite works better). So by time, the layer gets thinner and thinner and only shows the highest spots. Depending on how often you just refresh or pick up new blue, you have control over the thickness of the layer.

When I do have to wipe off all blue and start from new -while doing detail work- I normally do have to make two or more spottings (and wipe the off the blue of the work) to make the layer thinner.

When the layer is too thick, you end up with a surface being all blue. The result is, that you only see high spots. You can't distinguish between high/medium/low spots and deep valleys.

I've been thinking about a way to measure the thickness of the blue layer. One time, I'll ask someone to grind me a device for that. As that requires a extremely precise surface grinder and metrology, I need someone willing to do that for me. Maybe I know someone.


Nick

[jhovel]

Nick, just to help other people searching for and finding the good information you are giving us here, the right English word id 'brayer' not braider. We all knew what you mean, so don't think I'm pedantic! This post is just so someone searching for information on brayers will find this thread.
Cheers,
Joe

[Big Shed]

Nick, just to help other people searching for and finding the good information you are giving us here, the right English word id 'brayer' not braider. We all knew what you mean, so don't think I'm pedantic! This post is just so someone searching for information on brayers will find this thread.
Cheers,
Joe

Have edited the thread title, thanks for that Joe.:2tsup:

[.RC.]

Ahh yes the brayer made from a roller out of a printer....

Someone bought one of them to the first scraping class.. It worked well... Although a lot of us ended up using our hands...

I wonder if posting some Marko Blue to Nick would be possible?

[MuellerNick]

Ahh yes the brayer made from a roller out of a printer....


Or of a typewriter. But this is very different to the one from a laser printer. The laser printer's is much softer. After using it for a few hours, I'm really impressed. It makes the most consistent and thinnest layers ever.

Brayer, I'll try to remember that word. I already came close to it. :U


Nick

[harty69]

Here is mine made from a roller out of a photographic printer its very round i had a shop brought one and found it to be very poor and not close to being round
the new one works very well a would say I 100% improvement the blue spreads much much better
it has roller bearings and the handle is made from a old bike seatpost which it hollow and lets you slide it over a post so the roller doesn't touch anything
211302

cheers
Harty

[Machtool]

I wonder if posting some Marko Blue to Nick would be possible?
Marko is actually in Europe, at the moment. He left last Wednesday week. I'm hoping he will be home sometime next week. I have to cover some of his customers. Luckily no one has rang yet.

I'd be happy to post some to Nick, I think I have some of the oldest stock.

Phil.

[Ueee]

Hi Nick,
That is a neat idea. I think i have an old cartridge in the back of my van waiting to be dropped of for recycling.
If anyone wants one and doesn't have one or one they can get an old toner off we have 4 laser faxes so just let me know.

[Bryan]

Harty's looks about 4" wide. What widths are others preferring?

[Abratool]

Hi Nick,
That is a neat idea. I think i have an old cartridge in the back of my van waiting to be dropped of for recycling.
If anyone wants one and doesn't have one or one they can get an old toner off we have 4 laser faxes so just let me know.
Ewan
Scraping is on the increase since completing the last course.
I have been hunting around looking for a suitable roller without success. Just been using fingers to spread blue. However the brayer seems to offer advantages.:2tsup:
So I will put my hand up for one of those rollers you have mentioned.
Please lets know.
regards
Bruce

[Kraehe]

Excellent suggestion. Thank you.

Kr.

[welder]

Thanks for the idea I have been using my fingers awell but I have a laser printer I will take the drum out when we get new toner :2tsup:

[simonl]

Great idea. We have a laser printer at work and we recycle the cartridges. Looks like some might not make it! :;

Simon

[Stustoys]

Sounds interesting, I have a crap roller that seems to do ok, but then I wouldnt know any better lol

Hi Ewan,
I'll p[ut my hand up for one when you get your hands on one. Then I can find out what I'm missing out on :) Thank you

Stuart

[Ueee]

Sounds interesting, I have a crap roller that seems to do ok, but then I wouldnt know any better lol

Hi Ewan,
I'll p[ut my hand up for one when you get your hands on one. Then I can find out what I'm missing out on :) Thank you

Stuart

No worries Stuart, Bruce (abratool) is getting the one i have, shouldn't be long till i need to replace another though, i'll let you know when i have it.

[Stustoys]

Thanks Ewan :2tsup:, no hurry I'm sure to be scraping for awhile yet lol besides I might take inspiration from your designs.

Stuart

[MuellerNick]

Today, I got the idea to somehow guestimate the thickness of a layer of blue made with that brayer.
Granite plate was used. Means blue spread and "wiped off" through severals spottings and refreshes (without picking up new colour). So to say clean but saturated with blue.
Then I weighted the brayer in the clean state, picked up blue, and re-weighted it. It picked up 0.1 grams (well, resolution of my scale is 0.1 g; so some uncertainty).
Specific weight of the blue is a bit above 1 g / cm^3 (just sinks in water).
Then I spread the blue on the roller on my spotting area that is 90 by 15 cm.
So, the resulting thickness is 0.7 µm.

If I wipe over the granite with my finger, I almost don't pick up colour.

But this is extreme spotting! You won't get some readings if you haven't spent quite a few hours with the work trying to get it flat.

As a wild guess, I normally do have a layer of blue that is 5 times thicker.


Nick

[Stustoys]

Hi Nick,

I have a few problems with what you have done. Did you reweigh the roller after to see if all the blue was on the spotting area?
Also I think it assumes that your spotting area is not only flat(which it should be) but very smooth(which as you have said yourself granite isn't). So while you should be able to say that the blue is "no thicker" than 0.7 µm, it could be much thinner couldn't it? Though how much thinner when you say the pigment is ground to .001mm? I would expect most of the pigment would be much smaller than that but couldn't put a number on it.

Having said all that, as yet I haven't got any better ideas, Good work.

Stuart

[MuellerNick]

Yes, I weighted before picking up blue, after picking up blue and after spreading blue.
As I said, the granite was not cleaned, but it already had blue in all the small pores. I've been using it for 4 days without cleaning it. Means, without using a solvent, just wiping it off.
I used Dykem, so I have no information how big their pigments are.
The number I got from Kremer was the average size of the pigments. Maybe they could be milled smaller upon request.

With the corse resolution of the scale, there's an uncertainty of about factor two. So it might also be 1.4 µm or 0.35 µm.
I'm quite at the sweet spot of the layer, because refreshing without picking up blue works only once, then the spotting on the work gets way too thin to make sense. So, refreshing with picking up blue, spotting, refreshing without new blue, spotting, GOTO 1. Rethinking this sequence, it would mean that the layer is half as thick as calculated.
Anyhow, it's just a ballpark of how thin the layer can be made.


Nick