"You Gotta Keep 'em Separated"

[KinoLRB]

Have you ever successfully separated a cel from its evil conjoined twin--the stuck douga?

Share them here.

Failure stories are welcome too...separation tips...anything...

My technique:

If I feel its safe to try, I lift the cel by the corner of the douga and let the weight of the cel drag it off. It's a technique that's worked well for me the few times I've tried it. But caution. Attempt at own risk. I am (not) a professional.

My successes:

http://celluloidcentral.rubberslug.com/ ... mID=371666

http://celluloidcentral.rubberslug.com/ ... mID=371664

http://celluloidcentral.rubberslug.com/ ... mID=370306

[sensei]

I have with spotty results. The strategy that works best for me is to insert an old photograph between the layers (emulsion side toward the cel). I take it slowly, and if I hit a sticky dot (a hill in the paint that sticks more than the valleys) I sometimes put a dot of distilled water on the other side. That's hard on the sketch, as it softens the paper so a piece comes off on the back of the cel. But if the cel is not stuck too badly, gentle pressure between the cel and sketch will (usually) separate them. Bending either the sketch or the cel in the process, in my experience, increases the possibility of paint peeling or chipping off the back of the cel.

This and any method has a high risk of damaging the cel, especially in the edges (trace lines) or in lightly painted places such as the tips of a character's hair. When considering doing a separation, I'll run the old photo around the entire outline of the painted surface, especially hair tips, to see what the situation is. If I see signs that the paint has already begun to peel off the cel, I don't go any farther but leave the two in place. Primum non nocere (Above all, don't damage the cel).

For a genuinely valuable item, I'd leave the job in the hands of professionals, such as S&R Labs. That will be pricey, but preferable to ruining a unique item that you paid top dollar to get.

[cutiebunny]

I hope I wasn't the only one who began to mumble the rest of the lyrics to the Offspring song...

I've ended up trashing a lot of douga from trying to do this. I'd rather preserve the cel and if I had to chose between saving the cel or the sketch, it would be the former. In all cases though, I've only done this with "cheaper" cels that I don't care about that much.

I've tried freezing the cel for a couple hours to remove the sketch and have had pretty good luck doing that. Basically, you put the cel in a Ziploc bag and into the freezer for a couple hours, take it out, and slowly start to pull the sketch off. When the sketch starts to be stubborn to remove again, place it back in the freezer and repeat. This only seems to work with things that are moderately stuck to the sketch. I've yet to have any real success with cels that are plastered to the douga.

Typing all this up reminds me of another reason why I've moved away from cel collecting. It's heartbreaking when you buy something that you really wanted only to find out that it's practically plastered to a sketch or non-matching background whose dark colors will eventually end up bleeding into your cel.

[teggacat]

I hope I wasn't the only one who began to mumble the rest of the lyrics to the Offspring song...

LOL….guilty……


as far as separating the cel and the sketch, well, I've had some really pleasing successes and a one or two not so good,
I guess it needs a bit of common sense logic as to how far you want to go with "the procedure"

[star-phoenix]

I personally have had more success than bad results. I just very gentrly run my (super clean) hand between the cela nd sketch and to apply gentle pressure and a little bit of bag and forth motion until I can feel the sketch and paint starting to separate from each other. I rarely had paint loss from this. Was too scared to do the photograph idea because of the sharper edges.

But, I have 1, maybe 2 cels were I ultimately just sacrificed the sketch and cut it to save the paint. This was were the douga was already in bad shape and valueless compared to the cel and the cel paint was literally fused to the paper.

S/R labs I can tell you will take that douga off and just repaint the cel. They have been known to repaint cels and even strip off old paint when they restore pieces (especially vintage pieces, they will often times strip the paint and repaint completely). So, if you are a naturalist and want to keept hecel in the original condition with the original paint, try avoiding restorationist as much as you can or ask if they can conserve the paint rather than repainting before sending your piece over there.

[ToriPagac]

i yanked a stuck pieceof paper from the first she-hulk cek i ever got some paint came off the back but it turned out her hair was overpainted thank god for big 80s hair the paper is mostly gone a few stay bits behind her gloves

[sensei]

S/R labs I can tell you will take that douga off and just repaint the cel. They have been known to repaint cels and even strip off old paint when they restore pieces (especially vintage pieces, they will often times strip the paint and repaint completely).

Thank you for this information, star-phoenix: that does put the issue in context. Of course someone wishing to display the item won't mind the repainting. (I understand the same thing is done with Old Master paintings that need to be restored, so "authenticity" is not as clear to define as we think it is.

By the way, the "old photos" I use do not have sharp corners. That's one advantage of the supermarket drop-off and pick-up photos: they came back on flopsy photo paper that had a thin plastic lamination on both sides. The corners are not especially sharp: anyhow they quickly become blunted with use. I took lots of photos in the day, and many of them were trees, bushes, my foot, etc., and the supermarket would print every dang one. So I dig out and use a footsie photo. It seems a gentler way to prise the two stuck layers apart than peeling one layer back or letting the weight of the cel pull itself loose. I once demonstrated the method to a sparse crowd at AnimeNext, and gave the two unstuck layers to one of the attendees as a thanks for coming.

Worth noting: all the cels that I used to make my avatar originally came stuck to their sketches, and I used this method (with the occasional drop of distilled water) to get Morten and Nils flying again.