Watermark Fluid ?'s

I have a black plastic watermark tray that has a flat half and a ribbed half for air drying. Don't recall the manufacturer.

My only complaint with Ronsonol is that I have to let the stamps air out for an hour or so after using to get rid of the slight Ronsonol smell.

Robert

This is on topic yet slightly to the left /right. I have only used ronsonol and had pretty good results even with fully gumed issues. What I am wondering is will using the fluid be succesful in unsticking some items without much damage. I would imagine the liquid would release the items but may damage gum if detached at the wrong time. Anyone experiment this way?? As for the ribbed tray it seems it would be a waste of fluid ,possible intentional to make consumer use up that $15 fluid but the drying idea also makes sense - 1 side flat 1 ribbed would be a good tool.

I just used Ronsonol for the first time to sort through some Hindenburg issues. The smell was nasty, and it may have dissolved some of the ink from a purple cancellation. Otherwise, it worked well enough. I figure the inconclusive results were the pre-NSDAP issues with a netting design, as opposed to the swastikas in the later printing. I will have to find a more ventilated space if I ever dare to sit down to separate later from earlier Germanias.

Well the ribbed tray was the problem. After getting in a flat tray was able to watermark thousands of stamps over the holidays. Thanks for the help!

If you need a flat black tray ,try going to one of the fast food resturants,some like Taco Bell or Boston Market serve some of their food in large plastic black trays or bowls .I use the larger ones to soak stamps off paper and many watermarks are visable in the water if its in the black tray.

I usually lie the stamp on the black part of an old cd case (the part that actually holds the cd is usually black). Then I squirt a little fluid on the stamp.

I use ronsonol and a black ceramic tile.

I have a 4" x 4" black granite sample piece, use it with Ronsonol all the time and it works great.

The next watermarking question...

I noticed that some of you that don't use a tray that will hold the fluid so do you just pour it out of the bottle or you do have a dropper and drop a few drops out at a time?

When I have thousands of Aust KGVs to watermark, they usually need a bit of a clean as well. Being careful of the issues that the ink runs when in water.

So I soak, spread the stamps out backs up, then as the stamps dry the watermark at some stage will show up as clear as day. I use very little lighter fluid and have clean stamps. The freezer top holds 500 stamps and out of this only 3 to 5 stamps need lighter fluid to find their watermark.