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Anybody having trouble with feeding Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk, especially newer batches of paper purchased recently (ish), and especially US Letter size? I have put countless sheets of this paper through my Epson 4880 over the years, and never had a hint of issues with it feeding properly from the front cassette. I thought I knew the handling of this paper well and have relied on it is one of my primary go-to choices.

As luck would have it, I am printing a really large print order right now in a variety of sizes for delivery on Tuesday. One day before I leave for Iceland for a couple of weeks. I chose Gold Fibre Silk for all prints, and went through packs of 17x22 and 13x19 no problem, then also burned up my last pack of 8.5x11 too. I bought 2 new packs of the latter, and starting with the very first sheet of the new packs, I can't get any of the Ilford to feed through my Epson 4880 no matter what paper path I try. They all jam.

Any other paper in my current stock that I try, still works fine. E.g. I'm now finishing my print job using Canson Platine Fibre Rag, since I'm out of time to waste on the issue with Ilford. The Canson paper is 310 gsm just like the Ilford, has a very similar surface (though a bit more white) and overall a very similar feel (though a bit more "fibre" feeling on the back than the Ilford). The Canson paper feeds no problem, just like the Ilford always used to.

I'm wondering if I stumbled on a bad batch of Gold Fibre Silk, or if Ilford has changed something in the paper composition lately. The letter sheets feel a touch stiffer to me though I could be imagining it. But when a piece jams and I look under the printer's back cover, I can clearly see the leading edge of the paper tucked right up to & bowed slightly upwards against the top set of feed rollers. I'm inferring that the stiffness of the paper is preventing it from feeding into those rollers and getting pulled up into the platen area. No sheet of Gold Fibre Silk can feed past those rollers right now, as far as I can tell... they all appear to jam at the same spot.

Just curious... would hate to lose the ability to use this paper. Even if I could get rear feeding to work, which right now isn't working either, there's not enough time in the world for me to mess with feeding single sheets.

Oh, among the papers that still feed fine from the front cassette is the 13x19 size for Gold Fibre Silk. Whatever is bedeviling my printer with this paper seems to be just with new packs of the paper, or possibly even just new packs of 8.5x11 size...

Hi Royce,

Did you ever resolve this issue? What was the problem/cause?

Thanks, Joerg

It was a bad batch of paper. There was a persistent buckling of the paper and even the 4880 with its much more robust paper feed paths & vacuum system could not keep it flat enough to avoid jamming. I'm guessing something in the production process by Ilford (perhaps applying the inkjet layer) stressed the paper base in a weird way, but that's just a guess. Perhaps a different surface composition at the same time that the feed rollers simultaneously had a harder time gripping.

I finished the order above using the Canson Platine Fibre Rag and it worked fine. Haven't had to use any 8.5 x 11 Ilford Gold Fibre Silk since the above incident; 13 x 19 and 17 x 22 IGFS remained fine the whole time.

I guess that shows that getting a good batch of paper is a bit of a lottery. Thanks for the update.

Joerg

I wonder how prevalent that is. I got a bad batch of Breathing Color Crystalline Satin (a 44 inch roll) about 6 weeks ago (irregular globs of their satin coating along the edges. They replaced it, no questions asked. I haven't had a problem with any other paper. This would be a good poll.

Just a quick note to update this thread. I had a batch of 13x19 Ilford Gold Fibre Silk start jamming in my 4880 this week. Every sheet, no matter how I tried to feed it... they just wouldn't go through. Everything else was working fine, including the heaviest matte stocks I've got like Hahnemuhle Bamboo. So I decided to chase the problem harder this time... I was hoping I didn't have a developing mechanical feed problem with the printer, but if I did I wanted to find out now instead of at a later, worse time.

Turns out it does indeed seem to be something to do with the paper. Ilford GFS is a heavy fibre stock but not exceptionally heavy. It lays very flat in all the samples I've ever had, no curl or warp. Compared to many others it seems very well behaved in cut sheet form. But what I started to notice while fighting with it this week is that it seemed very stiff compared to every other paper I currently have. So I took several of the 13x19 sheets and fired them through a curl/de-curl process in my home-made de-roller. (A cardboard roll core wrapped by a long length of surplus canvas.) I did this a few times for each sheet, to see if I could loosen them up a bit.

Once I started feeding the curl-processed sheets through the printer again, they went through flawlessly. So if you have jamming trouble with Ilford GFS cut sheets, or any other unusually non-pliable media, try curling and de-curling the sheets a few times and see if they feed okay after that.

Maintaining higher humidity where you store & print your paper might help as well. It's no coincidence, I don't think, that I had this issue with Ilford GFS now that winter has been up here for a few weeks and we've not yet broken out the house humidifier...