today's contribution is from Inge Bruggeman of Textura Printing & Ink-A! Press in Portland, Oregon - another & different approach - [& by the way, Inge is, among other things, involved in the Vista Sans Wood Type Project, seriously worth checking out]
I have used all kinds of dampening methods, the fanciest being a large plastic lidded box with a photo tray in the bottom - the photo tray has two sponges wet with distilled water and just a small amount of rubbing alcohol to prevent mold, then a sheet of gridded plastic is placed over that - this is what the paper rests on. For a lot of paper I have used one of those dispenser/sprayers from the hardware store that people use to spray nutrients (hooray!) or pesticides (boo!) from. The paper gets spritzed on one side and depending on the paper, I may skip spraying every other sheet - the paper is stacked, then put in the plastic box to even out the moisture throughout the fibres of the paper and as evenly as possible - usually 24 hours. This method was published somewhere by Cathy Baker, maybe in the Friends of Dard Hunter Newsletter? I will see if I can dig that up. . . it does have some nice photos.
In the end though, and for most things, I just use distilled water in a spray bottle and spritz each sheet, stack them, and keep them in a plastic bag under a light weight for 24 hours - a traditional damp pack. This method seems to work very well for most papers and printing that I do.
