Polaroid film homemade

[smithdoor]

Here is one on making Polaroid film at home I found at apug pasting it on

http://www.instructables.com/id/Making-instant-film-at-home-polaroid-55-/#step5
Found at http://www.apug.org/forums/forum37/124567-home-made-polaroid-type-55-a.html

Dave

[Racer X 69]

This is an interesting idea. It is great that people actually take the initiative to figure out these things.

But the Instructables thing is vague. The person lists the ingredients for the paste, even how much to use, and what is about the right amount for 4x5, but no mention of how much for 8x10.

Then again, I guess if someone really wants to give it a go, they can do like julsdylan and experiment on their own! :cool:

[StoneNYC]

I agree that the little instruction thing is kind of vague, however it's kind of interesting that this person home was able to make a decent negative and print, with just sort of figuring it out yet the new 55 project years later still hasn't come out with any product at all for us to buy and they are still "testing"

If they don't watch out, this guy could probably start selling a version of pos/neg before them LOL

[jcoldslabs]

Also discussed here:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?108352-Making-your-own-type-55-well-sorta&highlight=qualls+reagent

Jonathan

[Racer X 69]

I agree that the little instruction thing is kind of vague, however it's kind of interesting that this person home was able to make a decent negative and print, with just sort of figuring it out yet the new 55 project years later still hasn't come out with any product at all for us to buy and they are still "testing"

If they don't watch out, this guy could probably start selling a version of pos/neg before them LOL

For sure, you have to give the credit for his efforts. The sleeve information is not discussed well, and really I suppose if one wanted they could examine the Polaroid version and come up with a reasonable facsimile.


Also discussed here:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?108352-Making-your-own-type-55-well-sorta&highlight=qualls+reagent

Jonathan

Thanks Jonathan, I saw that after I had already read this thread and commented here. Made me wonder why the moderation staff didn't merge the two threads.

[smithdoor]

I think has to do with the thread name I mist too and have read the other one today.
The good news maybe in a few year some one will make it for sale maybe even as a kit for homemade.

Dave



For sure, you have to give the credit for his efforts. The sleeve information is not discussed well, and really I suppose if one wanted they could examine the Polaroid version and come up with a reasonable facsimile.



Thanks Jonathan, I saw that after I had already read this thread and commented here. Made me wonder why the moderation staff didn't merge the two threads.

[Racer X 69]

The good news is in a few year some one will make it for sale maybe even as a kit for homemade.

That would be nice!

[Fred L]

Interesting idea but if I read that correctly, the film is exposed THEN mated with the print paper, unlike T55. Not very practical in this form but a good start nonetheless.

[Allan B]

Does anyone know the status of new55 film? http://new55project.blogspot.com/
Are they close to bringing back a new version of Polaroid type 55 positive-negative film?
And when and how much might it cost?

About two years ago, they said they were working on financing
and other details and were hoping to have film in production
within 8 months.

Being able to buy type 55 or a similar film would be the most practical solution.

Thanks Allan

[smithdoor]

This type of pull a part film out side of Polaroid has been around for at less 50 years. Use in Copiers and in printing industries as PMT (PMT was a pull part type paper film ) both you would run in developer and roll out then pull a part. This type of paper/film was around ASA 25 and a paper developer I used Kodak Dektol B&W Paper. If you can find this it would be a short jump
(PMT is a photomechanical transfer)
More back ground see http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-93135652.html

Dave

[StoneNYC]

This type of pull a part film out side of Polaroid has been around for at less 50 years. Use in Copiers and in printing industries as PMT (PMT was a pull part type paper film ) both you would run in developer and roll out then pull a part. This type of paper/film was around ASA 25 and a paper developer I used Kodak Dektol B&W Paper. If you can find this it would be a short jump
(PMT is a photomechanical transfer)
More back ground see http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-93135652.html

Dave

If it's so easy, how come the new 55 can't seem to produce something after all this time...

[smithdoor]

Polaroid sued any trying it 20 years ago. Today try to find PMT / photomechanical transfer supplies.

Dave



If it's so easy, how come the new 55 can't seem to produce something after all this time...

[Racer X 69]

If it's so easy, how come the new 55 can't seem to produce something after all this time...

Something about the machinery to produce the stuff in large quantities. Seems I read that they were a bit late trying to buy the equipment from Polaroid, and it was destroyed.

[smithdoor]

They did try hard it is print equipment even the dies need can come from that industry. Most of the work can be sub out as only the last part need to done in the dark.

Dave


Something about the machinery to produce the stuff in large quantities. Seems I read that they were a bit late trying to buy the equipment from Polaroid, and it was destroyed.

[jcoldslabs]

New55 was originally based around Efke 25 sheet film. They had done all of their testing and were getting close to finalizing their prototype when Efke ceased production; they then had to switch to another film which required more testing. They also intend for their film to be backwards compatible with existing Polaroid 545 film holders which means they have to meet the specs that those holders require, including the custom-crimped metal clips at the end of the film packets. The cost of getting those tooled and produced was much higher than they anticipated.

Ultimately, they are having trouble reaching their target price of $6/sheet. They could produce film packets right now but at a price no one would pay. Once they can scale it up on the materials side they will be pretty close to making it happen, but that takes a lot of capital for something that is--at best--bound to be a niche product without a lot of growth potential.

TL;DR: At its core New55 is having profitability issue, not a technological one.

Jonathan

[StoneNYC]

New55 was originally based around Efke 25 sheet film. They had done all of their testing and were getting close to finalizing their prototype when Efke ceased production; they then had to switch to another film which required more testing. They also intend for their film to be backwards compatible with existing Polaroid 545 film holders which means they have to meet the specs that those holders require, including the custom-crimped metal clips at the end of the film packets. The cost of getting those tooled and produced was much higher than they anticipated.

Ultimately, they are having trouble reaching their target price of $6/sheet. They could produce film packets right now but at a price no one would pay. Once they can scale it up on the materials side they will be pretty close to making it happen, but that takes a lot of capital for something that is--at best--bound to be a niche product without a lot of growth potential.

TL;DR: At its core New55 is having profitability issue, not a technological one.

Jonathan

The having profitability issues because they aren't selling anything, if they would just list things as "this is the price right now if you want it you can order it" later it will be better and less expensive but if you want it now you can have it at this price, people would buy it, and they would have money, TIP figured this out along time ago, I don't understand why they haven't figured that out... Sure maybe you wouldn't buy it, and maybe I couldn't afford to buy a whole box of 10 for example, but I might consider it at $10 a sheet to buy a pack just to have some early, and I know a lot of other photographers that are much more successful than me that would probably drop a grand easy to get a bunch of boxes of this stuff...

[smithdoor]

For $6.00 sheet you can hand make the old 55. Even if you are trying for a huge profit this would work. My back ground was manufacturing for 40 years. This just paper and printing and low cost chemicals.
Just think if some one made 20 hour that $120.00. They were paid $8.00 using the blind to do this work the government will give money too for using the blind.

Dave


New55 was originally based around Efke 25 sheet film. They had done all of their testing and were getting close to finalizing their prototype when Efke ceased production; they then had to switch to another film which required more testing. They also intend for their film to be backwards compatible with existing Polaroid 545 film holders which means they have to meet the specs that those holders require, including the custom-crimped metal clips at the end of the film packets. The cost of getting those tooled and produced was much higher than they anticipated.

Ultimately, they are having trouble reaching their target price of $6/sheet. They could produce film packets right now but at a price no one would pay. Once they can scale it up on the materials side they will be pretty close to making it happen, but that takes a lot of capital for something that is--at best--bound to be a niche product without a lot of growth potential.

TL;DR: At its core New55 is having profitability issue, not a technological one.

Jonathan

[StoneNYC]

For $6.00 sheet you can hand make the old 55. Even if you are trying for a huge profit this would work. My back ground was manufacturing for 40 years. This just paper and printing and low cost chemicals.
Just think if some one made 20 hour that $120.00. They were paid $8.00 using the blind to do this work the government will give money too for using the blind.

Dave

Than why don't you make some and sell it, in fact, I know that the reason that they're trying to do it with the individual metal holders has more to do with the availability and price of the metal holders I think they figure that if they sell them to go with the 545 holders, that it will be easier for people to attain them at a low price and make it more appealing in general, however I think that with all the issues that they have going on it would be much easier for them to skip all that and just make the Peel apart style ones that come in packs of 8 or 10 just like the Fuji ones, at least then they wouldn't have to deal with getting the metal crimping stuff.

Anyway what the heck do I know, I certainly don't have the time or patience to put all the stuff together. I just want it done and available ;)

[smithdoor]

I am in the same boat I have 545 holder too. I have even look at Positive' Paper too do the job but it is to slow.
FYI I purchase my 545 new it work great.

Dave


Than why don't you make some and sell it, in fact, I know that the reason that they're trying to do it with the individual metal holders has more to do with the availability and price of the metal holders I think they figure that if they sell them to go with the 545 holders, that it will be easier for people to attain them at a low price and make it more appealing in general, however I think that with all the issues that they have going on it would be much easier for them to skip all that and just make the Peel apart style ones that come in packs of 8 or 10 just like the Fuji ones, at least then they wouldn't have to deal with getting the metal crimping stuff.

Anyway what the heck do I know, I certainly don't have the time or patience to put all the stuff together. I just want it done and available ;)

[StoneNYC]

I am in the same boat I have 545 holder too. I have even look at Positive' Paper too do the job but it is to slow.
FYI I purchase my 545 new it work great.

Dave

Yes I have two 545 holders, I also own a fuji PA-145 and PA-45 backs for the peel apart pack film, so I don't care which way it comes haha, I can use both :)

[jcoldslabs]

The having profitability issues because they aren't selling anything, if they would just list things as "this is the price right now if you want it you can order it" later it will be better and less expensive but if you want it now you can have it at this price, people would buy it, and they would have money, TIP figured this out along time ago, I don't understand why they haven't figured that out... Sure maybe you wouldn't buy it, and maybe I couldn't afford to buy a whole box of 10 for example, but I might consider it at $10 a sheet to buy a pack just to have some early, and I know a lot of other photographers that are much more successful than me that would probably drop a grand easy to get a bunch of boxes of this stuff...



For $6.00 sheet you can hand make the old 55. Even if you are trying for a huge profit this would work. My back ground was manufacturing for 40 years. This just paper and printing and low cost chemicals.

I'm only restating what I've learned by following the New55 blog (http://new55project.blogspot.com/) over the past few years. This is from their FAQ page:

The current plan is 8 months after the final funding, which is not yet in place. It will take that long to tool up, get supply lines filled, and iron out the bugs from the system. We do have a working system today that is mostly hand assembled. It works well, but cannot be made in large production quantities until there is money available for scale up. R&D has been costly, but funded as a skunkworks project by Soundwave Research, which has paid for hired help, materials, air travel, equipment, and provides R&D space and infrastructure. New55 is nearly production ready.

If people have concrete ideas about how New55 could hasten their production, I would suggest writing to Bob Crowley directly. :)

Jonathan

[StoneNYC]

I'm only restating what I've learned by following the New55 blog (http://new55project.blogspot.com/) over the past few years. This is from their FAQ page:

The current plan is 8 months after the final funding, which is not yet in place. It will take that long to tool up, get supply lines filled, and iron out the bugs from the system. We do have a working system today that is mostly hand assembled. It works well, but cannot be made in large production quantities until there is money available for scale up. R&D has been costly, but funded as a skunkworks project by Soundwave Research, which has paid for hired help, materials, air travel, equipment, and provides R&D space and infrastructure. New55 is nearly production ready.

If people have concrete ideas about how New55 could hasten their production, I would suggest writing to Bob Crowley directly. :)

Jonathan

Kickstarter? Lol

[smithdoor]

Just do it
You can take a lot about doing it they do not some one else will this not a computer it is paper
After day it looks like a good industry to start can easily be started in short time 1 to 3 months

Dave

[jcoldslabs]

Kickstarter? Lol

Also from the New55 blog:

Lots of people have recommended Kickstarter and though we had a Kickstarter approved project from nearly the beginning and a still valid Kickstarter account, we have none of the people needed to run a crowd funded program and administer to the day to day activities that entails, not to mention that these types of funding sources are in reality just pre-order systems - not really geared toward tooling and machinery to make volumes of products.

J.

[StoneNYC]

Also from the New55 blog:

Lots of people have recommended Kickstarter and though we had a Kickstarter approved project from nearly the beginning and a still valid Kickstarter account, we have none of the people needed to run a crowd funded program and administer to the day to day activities that entails, not to mention that these types of funding sources are in reality just pre-order systems - not really geared toward tooling and machinery to make volumes of products.

J.

Yeah but it's a bunch of BS and I don't mean that in an angry way, but it's a bunch of BS. If TIP could do it for their "instant lab" and Lomography could do it for their Petzval lens, then surely New55 could do it for their tooling and machinery since that's what TIP and Lomography used it for.

Sure, then they would be obligated to fill the orders, but isn't that the point? Then they would also have tons of people using the film talking about it and then get more orders of new film after it was shot.

[Fred L]

I would only buy a T55 replacement type film IF it was made to work with the 545 holders otherwise I'll just keep shooting regular holders and processing later. I'm looking for a product that works similar to T55 even if the look is very different (pretty much guaranteed) but that will give me results in the field.

and agree with Stone, if Bob offered film for sale (even beta), I'd probably buy a package to a) help move the project forward, b) show investors there's a market c) try something different

[jcoldslabs]

Unlike the Impossible Project films which work in millions of vintage SX-70, 600 and Spectra cameras, the New55 stuff ONLY works with the Polaroid 545 holders which limits its use to LF cameras. Whereas the Impossible Project has millions of potential customers and room for growth with new and innovative products, New55 is limited to thousands of potential customers without much room for growth. I can't imagine the number of 4x5 photographers is increasing very much each year, and Fuji just announced it will discontinue FP-3000B pack film. Not an encouraging sign.

I think the problem of a beta release is that there is no "staff" at New55, just Bob and an assistant or two. At best they could release a few hundred hand assembled film packets into the wild. That low volume won't tell potential investors very much or demonstrate the market viability of the product. But like I said, I'm taking them at their word. If New55 could do it then I assume they would, but maybe not.

Jonathan

[smithdoor]

That is good news
They may find hand assembled film packets may be as cheaper than the machine to making packets.
The 55 was use in other industries for recording and the new computer came out Polaroid lost a big chunk

Dave




Unlike the Impossible Project films which work in millions of vintage SX-70, 600 and Spectra cameras, the New55 stuff ONLY works with the Polaroid 545 holders which limits its use to LF cameras. Whereas the Impossible Project has millions of potential customers and room for growth with new and innovative products, New55 is limited to thousands of potential customers without much room for growth. I can't imagine the number of 4x5 photographers is increasing very much each year, and Fuji just announced it will discontinue FP-3000B pack film. Not an encouraging sign.

I think the problem of a beta release is that there is no "staff" at New55, just Bob and an assistant or two. At best they could release a few hundred hand assembled film packets into the wild. That low volume won't tell potential investors very much or demonstrate the market viability of the product. But like I said, I'm taking them at their word. If New55 could do it then I assume they would, but maybe not.

Jonathan

[smithdoor]

I was editing my lost post as LF went down

The other way is to make a high speed positive paper with a in field simple developer. They had PMT developers 30 years just have down size and make the machine to unload the paper. Yes I have use pmt machine in the darkroom for stander paper developing.

Dave

[smithdoor]

The biggest problem I found is most think you need a machine to do the work. This will cost hundred of thousands dollars to build new. Using old and modifying machine use other types of work can cost as little as scrap price. This is my background manufacturing I did lot modifying to make my products long the way I found doing thing by hand is some time cheaper than building a tool to do the work. .
As said before IF I was in my 40's today I would jump on this one FYI this was the other part I was type before LF went down

Dave


If it's so easy, how come the new 55 can't seem to produce something after all this time...

[photonsoup]

I finally got tired of patiently waiting for New 55 to amount to anything, so I've been working on my own. So far I've stuck with the chemicals in the blog that started it all. I am getting negatives that would be good if I could solve the pod problem. When I make mine from butcher paper and heat seal the edges it is to strong for the rollers in my 545 to break open. Everything else I've tried is to weak or just as strong. So when I do get a pod to work, my coverage is sporadic.

Does anyone has any suggestions on what to make the chemical pods from?

I have gotten my own envelopes to work quite well. I did get a lot of Type 52 that is dead, so I've been pulling the envelops apart and putting my own film and chemicals in them. I haven't tried for a positive image yet, but have gotten some on the old paper that came in the packets.

[Kirk Gittings]

Making it and selling it are two different animals. To sell it you would probably run head on into some pretty stiff legal problems with patent owners.

[smithdoor]

Try Kodak Dektol I use for PMT witch is also the same polaroid film

Dave


I finally got tired of patiently waiting for New 55 to amount to anything, so I've been working on my own. So far I've stuck with the chemicals in the blog that started it all. I am getting negatives that would be good if I could solve the pod problem. When I make mine from butcher paper and heat seal the edges it is to strong for the rollers in my 545 to break open. Everything else I've tried is to weak or just as strong. So when I do get a pod to work, my coverage is sporadic.

Does anyone has any suggestions on what to make the chemical pods from?

I have gotten my own envelopes to work quite well. I did get a lot of Type 52 that is dead, so I've been pulling the envelops apart and putting my own film and chemicals in them. I haven't tried for a positive image yet, but have gotten some on the old paper that came in the packets.

[photonsoup]

Making it and selling it are two different animals. To sell it you would probably run head on into some pretty stiff legal problems with patent owners.
I'm just doing this for my own entertainment. If I did want to sell it I doubt there is enough demand to justify setting up for. And there is no way I am going to sit in a room all day assembling packets:)


Try Kodak Dektol I use for PMT witch is also the same polaroid film

Dave
Dave I have the chemistry under control and will experiment with others. What I need to know is how to make the pods themselves. I've tried plastic coated butcher paper, aluminum foil tape, and wax paper. The heat sealed butcher paper won't open. The foil tape either leaks or wont open, depending on size of glue to glue seam. The wax paper falls apart and leaks.

[smithdoor]

I use some old polaroid film, and the pod was very thin wax. It most likely made by polaroid.

Dave

paper
I'm just doing this for my own entertainment. If I did want to sell it I doubt there is enough demand to justify setting up for. And there is no way I am going to sit in a room all day assembling packets:)


Dave I have the chemistry under control and will experiment with others. What I need to know is how to make the pods themselves. I've tried plastic coated butcher paper, aluminum foil tape, and wax paper. The heat sealed butcher paper won't open. The foil tape either leaks or wont open, depending on size of glue to glue seam. The wax paper falls apart and leaks.

[marfa boomboom tx]

I'm just doing this for my own entertainment. If I did want to sell it I doubt there is enough demand to justify setting up for. And there is no way I am going to sit in a room all day assembling packets:)


Dave I have the chemistry under control and will experiment with others. What I need to know is how to make the pods themselves. I've tried plastic coated butcher paper, aluminum foil tape, and wax paper. The heat sealed butcher paper won't open. The foil tape either leaks or wont open, depending on size of glue to glue seam. The wax paper falls apart and leaks.


tip: make a single edge(seal) break free. This means the bag stays closed, except for the single 'glued' edge. Roller then etc..

[Degroto]

Wel the good news is is that New55 has actually shifted gears and is busy setting up a kickstarterproject. More information can be found on www.new55project.com. So a little more patient.

New55 wants to be able to put out a high qualtity stable product. That takes time I'm afraid.

[Qeb]

Greetings everyone,

Has anyone heard of any progress with DIY/Home Made instant film yet?
I'm am super interested as I would love to start shooting instant film for portraits.

Thanks so much in advance for any help and time offered.
Please stay safe out there!
Sincerely,
Kevin H.