All I wanted was to post the print exchange shot...

I really wanted to get into the darkroom this weekend but had this copying task to perform...

Flash back a few weeks, last time I left the old Flashmaster AA power supply unattended it burned out. So I was looking for an excuse to replace it and found one for not much more than the cost of shipping. Turned out to be even older than the one I had before. The electric plug is two-prong not three-prong. So I rig a couple insulated prongs and get it working. But the fuse blew when I turned on the modeling lamps so I tried to figure out what was wrong.

I find the fuse holder was cracked so replaced with a breaker and tried again. This time the breaker blew. Looked it up and found I needed a certain bulb so off to the auto parts store and I find two of the right bulbs, replace them and back to it I go.

Nice ground fault jolt so I figured I'd ground it. Then something blew and the darn thing didn't work at all.

About an hour later I hear the beeping of my UPS running out of juice. Whew, the Flashmaster hadn't fried, it was the breaker that blew.

Got it all working and I think, hey let me try out this umbrella adapter box. This time it wasn't the breaker that blew. Smoke started pouring out of the insides as a capacitor was obviously blowing. The modeling lights blew out again.

So off to the auto parts store to replace the modeling lights again.

No more grounding, I leave it with a floating ground and promise not to put myself between ground and the toggle switch.

I attach the Wein isolator to the hot-shoe and hook up the flash and nothing happens when I shoot. But test button works. So I settle on 1/3 second and I fire manually.

I shoot a piece of white paper for white balance. Then I take the shots of my prints nice and square - rats the paper might be square but the image was crooked when I printed. Plus the sheet of paper I used for white balance must have had some UV brighteners that my prints don't have, the shots were all ivory.

Next trick I figured was pretty clever. I want to align on the image border, not the paper, so I scratch a line on a 35mm dark slide with a razor and project it on my copy easel. Work everything until that line is straight. Great trick. Got everything ready to go and the projector bulb blew. Nobody in town has ELH bulbs so I go back to sulking.

Get out the other projector and its bulb won't come on. In that case though, pulling and reseating worked (besides I have spares).

This time around everything worked great, the Flashmaster worked through the entire session without stinking. In all, a great weekend in the garage.