Steaming

[Maria Jürimäe]

Dear silk painters,

How many of you use steam-fixed colors, and how do you fix them?
I have steamed at home with steaming-pot, but it is not my favourite part of silk paitning.
Does anyone use some kind of professional steamers?
Where could those things be found (in internet), how much do they cost?

[elisabeth flatla]

I'm Elisabeth (Norway)

I have the professional staming equipment.
I bought it via mail order in Germany.
I can tell you more about it when coming home from work today......size, price and so on.

[Shelley Faye Lazar]

Could you email me with the company from Germany? [e-mail]

[Shelley Faye Lazar]

Please can you give me some information about the German company who supply steamers? I am desperate for a stove top "fish" type steamer and cannot find a supplier. Please reply asap to :-
[e-mail]

[Maria Jürimäe]

Hello, Elisabeth,

I am still interested in this information, would you be so kind and send me the address of their web page or some other contacts?

thank you!
Maria

[Maria Jürimäe]

Thank you, Elisabeth,

it is surely a question I am interested, because home-steaming (with steamer originally meant for berries) is the hardest part of silk painting for me ; ))

[Gina Murrow]

I have a homemade steamer that works very well. It's a 3-foot section of aluminum stovepipe picked up at the hardware store for about $6. I cut two notches across from each other at one end using simple tin snips. Each notch is about 1/2 inch deep. I got the instructions out of one of Susan Moyer's silk painting books.

Here's the basic process"

1) Roll the finished silk painting in brown craft paper (the kind you wrap mailing packages in) making sure you have 2-3 inches of clearance on the sides and about 6 inches or a little more on each end. I use a short piece of pvc pipe (plastic water pipe about 1 inch thick) to help me roll evenly. Tape the roll closed with masking tape and slide out the pvc pipe.

2) Take a 12-inch long piece of stiff wire (I snipped off the bottom part of a thick, wire coat hanger and it works great) and work it through the top layers of the paper roll with the silk. I find that if I push and twirl the wire at the same time, I can "drill" it through the paper fairly easily. Make sure you don't pierce the silk. Now you should have the paper roll hanging from the middle of the wire, looking like an oversized cocoon. (It makes a "T" shape)

3) Cover the bottom of the roll with foil, wrapping masking tape around the top of the foil to seal it off. This will protect the bottom of the roll from getting too wet from the steam.

4) Take a heavy duty pot (a stew pot or dutch oven), put it on your stove or a side burner of a grill, and fill it with hot water. Place the stove pipe into the pot with the pipe standing up. The water should only go up a few inches into the pipe. You want the paper roll to hang above and clear of the water.

5) Place the "cocoon" down into the pipe, resting the wire in the notches, so that the paper roll is suspended inside the stovepipe, out of reach of the water. For my scarves, a three-foot section works well. For the 25-inch square pieces, I need an extension on the pipe. I've noticed that if the pipe gets too tall (over 4-feet) that it doesn't get very hot at the top, so my extension is a joint part of a pipe, which adds about 8 inches.

6) Now wrap a collar of aluminum foil around the top of the cooking pot and the pipe (think of it as a foil shawl around the pipe's waist). This helps keep the water hot enough to steam.

7) Next, take two dish towels. Place one on top of the pipe's opening and be sure to tuck the towel down into the opening around the paper roll, making sure the towel is tucked around the wire that is holding up the paper cocoon. This keeps condesation from collecting on the wire and then running over to the paper roll and saturating it. Lay the second towel folded in fourths, on top of the pipe (like a hat). This keeps the steam in the pipe.

8) Start timing the steaming process after the water has begun steaming. You can check by carefully lifting the top towel and seeing the steam. Be careful not to burn yourself. Note: The water doesn't have to bubble for it to produce steam. When you check under the towels, you'll see and feel steam if it is working.

9) Keep an eye on the water level in the pot and don't let it run dry. For a two-hour steaming, I usually add boiling water from a tea kettle at least once, sometimes twice. Always add boiling water so that you don't halt the steaming process. When I'm in Alaska I steam on the stove in my kitchen, because we need in the house the warmth and humidity the process makes. When I'm in Texas, I steam outside on the side burner of the grill. There is already too much warmth and humidity in the air! I tried the single, hot-plate burners one can buy, but the over-heating safety feature kept switching off the burner plate and interrupting the steaming.

[Maria Jürimäe]

Thank you, Gina,

for so detailed answer! All those steps seem so difficult to follow. . . but maybe it is just "the hard beginning" - in Estonian we have this kind of "word of wisdom" - "Every beginning is hard" - but later it may seem as a piece of cace ; ))

[Gina Murrow]

Hi, Maria,
Don't let all those steps intimidate you! It's actually very easy. I got a little too detailed in my description. Through some dye on a scarf and practice with it. It will soon become second nature. Have fun!
Gina

[Maria Jürimäe]

Thank you! I believe you - it might become my second nature. . . but I am lazy. . . and I just love to paint, but I am not very found of other parts of this job, like steaming (preparation etc.), ironing the wax out. I have tried some professional steamers originally not meant to silkpainting, so I know that there is a nice, easy, fast way to do it (under the pressure), but I don't know, wheter it is possible (wise) to use something like that at home ; ))
But if it turns out, that it is impossible, I'll follow those steps and hope, that it will become my second nature soon ; ))

[Carolyn Elsworthy]

Hi Maria
I first steamer was a large pot on the stove with a pudding basin inside, now I use a steamer similer in set up to Gina's. The exception is that I use a large birko which is like a large electric boiler with a glavanised stove pipe for the top. The other difference's are (these may help Gina to keep her pipe hot) are that my stove pipe is wrapped with several layers of aluminum housing insualation available from hardware stores and I roll my silks onto an aluminum pole about 2 inches in diameter which I use to suspend the silk above the water. I still use butchers paper between the silks and I cover it all with alumium foil and use masking tape to hold the paper onto the pole and to bind the foil so that there is no gaps for water to enter. I also have a thermometer which I insert into the top to ensure that I maintain 100degrees C. I too put a towel on top across the wire from which the pole is suspended, foil held on with an elastic type band, then a lid and another towel for protection from any steam escaping. I have also put a mesh barrier in the bottom section on my pipe just to protect my boiler if the pole is ever drops into it. The process sound very long and fiddly but it enables you to steam quite large amounts of work in a short time 2 -3 hrs depending on how much work you put it. Costs Boiler $300 Stovepipe $20 Insulation $20 Aluminium pole $20 Australia

Another method I have used with steam fix dyes is microwaving but the silk must be wet in a sealed bag with a small hole and watched. The silk can be steamed in 1 minute bursts 3 times, taken out each time and shaken before the next burst of microwaving but you are limited to what you can produce as you have not control over what you produce and if the silk dries out it will then catch on fire and burn. But is worth experimenting with?

[Gina Murrow]

Great ideas, Carolyn! You solved some of my difficulties with steaming. Thanks!
Gina

[Maria Jürimäe]

Thank you Carolin
for sharing all those good tips and ideas!