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#1
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DIY print washer
I have been using a Kodak siphon to wash my prints (RC) but I am going to
start printing fiber and would like to build my own print washer. I never print more than 2 final prints in a session and therefore do not need one of the commercial washers capable of washing many prints at a time. Now, I have never seen commercial print washers in person and they are at best special order items at my local photo stores (no demo models). I print 11x14 but envision a thin Plexiglas tank for 16x20 with 2 or 3 dividers (capable of 3 or 4 prints respectively), here is my first question: Should the dividers be solid (thinner Plexiglas perhaps) and if so, should they be made out of a material that has texture? The other question I have is about where to locate the water inlet and outlet, meaning inlet at the bottom and outlet at the top of the tank or vice versa? Any answers, suggestions welcomed. Guillermo |
#2
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DIY print washer
Kudos for your Yankee values (couldn't resist). Anyway, go look up print
washers on commercial sites like Adorama, B&H and also look up print washers on eBay. One guy is making them out of utility wash trays from home depot. But the pics will give you some ideas. -- Regards, Dewey Clark http://www.historictimekeepers.com Ebay Sales: http://cgi6.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAP...ems&userid=dsc Restorations, Parts for Hamilton M21s, Products for Craftsmen Makers of Historic Timekeepers Ultrasonic Clock Cleaning Solution "f/256" wrote in message ble.rogers.com... I have been using a Kodak siphon to wash my prints (RC) but I am going to start printing fiber and would like to build my own print washer. I never print more than 2 final prints in a session and therefore do not need one of the commercial washers capable of washing many prints at a time. Now, I have never seen commercial print washers in person and they are at best special order items at my local photo stores (no demo models). I print 11x14 but envision a thin Plexiglas tank for 16x20 with 2 or 3 dividers (capable of 3 or 4 prints respectively), here is my first question: Should the dividers be solid (thinner Plexiglas perhaps) and if so, should they be made out of a material that has texture? The other question I have is about where to locate the water inlet and outlet, meaning inlet at the bottom and outlet at the top of the tank or vice versa? Any answers, suggestions welcomed. Guillermo |
#3
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DIY print washer
On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 00:55:55 GMT, "f/256" wrote:
Any answers, suggestions welcomed. Guillermo Guillermo IIRC - somebody did a bunch of testing of archival wash methods back in the early 80s (David Vestal?) - in any event, what struck me out of the reams of data was that it seemed as though a simple wash, followed by soaking in clean water overnight, followed by another short, simple wash beat out virtually any other method - and it's cheap and easy. |
#4
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DIY print washer
On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 00:55:55 GMT, "f/256" wrote:
I have been using a Kodak siphon to wash my prints (RC) but I am going to start printing fiber and would like to build my own print washer. I never print more than 2 final prints in a session and therefore do not need one of the commercial washers capable of washing many prints at a time. Now, I have never seen commercial print washers in person and they are at best special order items at my local photo stores (no demo models). I print 11x14 but envision a thin Plexiglas tank for 16x20 with 2 or 3 dividers (capable of 3 or 4 prints respectively), here is my first question: Should the dividers be solid (thinner Plexiglas perhaps) and if so, should they be made out of a material that has texture? The other question I have is about where to locate the water inlet and outlet, meaning inlet at the bottom and outlet at the top of the tank or vice versa? Any answers, suggestions welcomed. Guillermo feb504 from Lloyd Erlick, I'd say the first question would be do you want to be able to use it unattended, or is it all right if you have to go and fiddle with it every so often. If you don't mind going to the device and tweaking it every ten or fifteen minutes, I'd say just make a tank with your desired number of dividers (I'd use mesh or surgical tubing to separate prints, I don't really believe solid partitions create truly separated compartments). Provide a convenient method of emptying it, and when using it (i.e. it contains prints), simply fill with water, wait ten minutes while it soaks, empty, refill, and perform this ritual to your heart's content. Making a washer that you can just trickle water into and expect it to drain all right and wash the print as well gets you into worries that certain parts of the print do not recieve effective changes of water due to irregular circulation. You'd have to check your prints. A lot of research. Fill and dump sidesteps this issue because it's obvious the print is completely exposed to the fresh inputs of water, irrespective of eddies or currents or vortexes or anything at all. The attended dump and refill method is the old standby done in trays. A tank is just a tray standing on its edge, with another side added. If you use the single-tray method of FB print processing, you could just devote one tray to each print, and let them wash in their trays, by fill and dump. This would be a pretty cheap way to do it, especialy if you have too many trays kicking around from accumulating stuff over the years. (A friend of mine just gave me all his trays after he decided to drop the wet darkroom for digital. I don't need them any more than he does!) I've always thought fill and dump could be accomplished very easily unattended by employing the type of valve used in toilets. A toilet is a fill and dump device. I think commercial print washers are very overpriced. They're in competition with fish tanks sold at yard sales, and bound to come off second best in the price department. Once you've got the tank, though, the rest should not be all that costly. regards, --le _______________________________________ Lloyd Erlick Portraits, 2219 Gerrard Street East, unit #1, Toronto M4E 2C8 Canada. --- voice 416-686-0326 http://www.heylloyd.com _______________________________________ |
#5
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DIY print washer
I use a homemade print washer I made years ago. I took the design out of a
photo magazine that has long since been tossed. I can briefly describe it because it is not complicated at all. The shell is a 13-gallon plastic trash can. Inside I have 10-12 sheets of thin Plexiglas glued into for evenly slotted pieces of PVC pipe to hold the prints. The exit is a PVC screwed-in angle at the bottom about 1/2 to 3/4 inch in diameter (without looking) that has clear plastic tubing glued into it and rises upward toward the top of the trash can (or print washer now). This allows the water to be held in the print washer up to the level of the top of the external hose/tube. I then have a shower head attachment with a flexible hose that I clip on top of the washer that sprays water across the prints. Works fairly well except that the top of the trash can needs to be reinforced because the weight of the water causes it to expand. Very cheap to build! If you would like more information, I'll look abit closer and try to give a better description to give you ideas on how to build your own. |
#6
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DIY print washer
If you do a Google search on this wash method, several people have
discredited this approach. IIRC - somebody did a bunch of testing of archival wash methods back in the early 80s (David Vestal?) - in any event, what struck me out of the reams of data was that it seemed as though a simple wash, followed by soaking in clean water overnight, followed by another short, simple wash beat out virtually any other method - and it's cheap and easy. |
#7
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DIY print washer
"M&M" wrote in message ... If you do a Google search on this wash method, several people have discredited this approach. IIRC - somebody did a bunch of testing of archival wash methods back in the early 80s (David Vestal?) - in any event, what struck me out of the reams of data was that it seemed as though a simple wash, followed by soaking in clean water overnight, followed by another short, simple wash beat out virtually any other method - and it's cheap and easy. too good to be true... Guillermo |
#8
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DIY print washer
wrote in message ... On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 00:55:55 GMT, "f/256" wrote: feb504 from Lloyd Erlick, If you don't mind going to the device and tweaking it every ten or fifteen minutes, I'd say just make a tank with your desired number of dividers (I'd use mesh or surgical tubing to separate prints, I don't really believe solid partitions create truly separated compartments). Provide a convenient method of emptying it, and when using it (i.e. it contains prints), simply fill with water, wait ten minutes while it soaks, empty, refill, and perform this ritual to your heart's content. Maybe I should try this method first, I guess I could even get away with trays instead of building a tank, one print in each tray, changing water every 10 minutes. Would six changes be enough? Guillermo |
#9
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DIY print washer
"Robert J. Mathes" wrote in message ... I use a homemade print washer I made years ago. I took the design out of a photo magazine that has long since been tossed. I can briefly describe it because it is not complicated at all. The shell is a 13-gallon plastic trash can. Inside I have 10-12 sheets of thin Plexiglas glued into for evenly slotted pieces of PVC pipe to hold the prints. The exit is a PVC screwed-in angle at the bottom about 1/2 to 3/4 inch in diameter (without looking) that has clear plastic tubing glued into it and rises upward toward the top of the trash can (or print washer now). This allows the water to be held in the print washer up to the level of the top of the external hose/tube. I then have a shower head attachment with a flexible hose that I clip on top of the washer that sprays water across the prints. Works fairly well except that the top of the trash can needs to be reinforced because the weight of the water causes it to expand. Very cheap to build! If you would like more information, I'll look abit closer and try to give a better description to give you ideas on how to build your own. I found this site http://www.peter-bryenton.co.uk/bpw/index.html probably similar idea to yours (minus the drying rack instead of Plexiglas dividers). Problem is that it would waste too much water, I only print 2, perhaps 3 final prints per session. Guillermo |
#10
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DIY print washer
On Fri, 06 Feb 2004 04:21:40 GMT, "f/256"
wrote: wrote in message .. . On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 00:55:55 GMT, "f/256" wrote: feb504 from Lloyd Erlick, If you don't mind going to the device and tweaking it every ten or fifteen minutes, I'd say just make a tank with your desired number of dividers (I'd use mesh or surgical tubing to separate prints, I don't really believe solid partitions create truly separated compartments). Provide a convenient method of emptying it, and when using it (i.e. it contains prints), simply fill with water, wait ten minutes while it soaks, empty, refill, and perform this ritual to your heart's content. Maybe I should try this method first, I guess I could even get away with trays instead of building a tank, one print in each tray, changing water every 10 minutes. Would six changes be enough? Guillermo feb604 from Lloyd Erlick, There's no doubt you could get away with trays; it's been done for millenia. Thousands of centuries of darkroom workers have used their stone trays to wash prints... I'd say six changes of water would be fine. Kodak says (sorry I can't cite a specific reference, but I've seen it countless times) five changes of water are enough. They might be referring to film, a bit of searching through Kodak's material might be in order. But still, I'd say that six changes (after using a hypo clear bath) including ten or fifteen minutes soaking between changes, would do a good job. Make sure the prints don't just sink and stick closely to the bottom. Maybe put a bit of plastic screen material in the tray so the paper is kept off the botom. The only advantage of commercial print washers is the ability to ignore them for the duration of the wash. The attended wash is actually superior in terms of washing; it's very attention-intensive, though, since you have to keep coming back and sloshing the tray and making sure the prints are not floating part way out into the air. But if one is willing to do that (it's not so difficult!) one can save a lot of money. Basically FB material washes by diffusion of the undesirable molecules out of the paper and emulsion into the surrounding water. Diffusion slows as the molecules collect in the surrounding water, so it must be dumped and replaced. After enough of this, the number of molecules in the paper is reduced to the point where inducing more to leave is very difficult, or even to the point where no more molecules are actually present. This concept does not imply that one must have a commercial print washer, or spend money at all. It only implies the sheet of paper must be allowed to give up what we regard as contaminating molecules in the only way it can, which is slowly by diffusion. To tell you the truth, I think it might be a better use of time and resources to just forget about tanks and special construction projects and stick with producing beautiful prints. The project takes up time and money that could go into paper and darkroom activities. Plus there is the time and effort of earning the money; time away from the darkroom is bad for your mental health. Use the old traditional methods and stay sane... Another thought: what with so many people abandoning the traditional darkroom, you'd think there would be great big boxy plastic tank style print washers available for cheap. We've seen the price of 10x10 horizontal enlargers lately (under 200 bucks!). Washers must be out there, too. regards, --le _______________________________________ Lloyd Erlick Portraits, 2219 Gerrard Street East, unit #1, Toronto M4E 2C8 Canada. --- voice 416-686-0326 http://www.heylloyd.com _______________________________________ |
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