Thread: A brayer (rubber roller) for spreading spotting blue

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?)

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

Dave

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

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

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

Originally Posted by 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

Have edited the thread title, thanks for that Joe.

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?

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.


Nick

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
Attachment 211302

cheers
Harty

Originally Posted by .RC.

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.

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.

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

Originally Posted by 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.

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.
So I will put my hand up for one of those rollers you have mentioned.
Please lets know.
regards
Bruce

Excellent suggestion. Thank you.

Kr.