I am posting a note form the New55 cheif with regard to some of my concerns from APUG:
Good that you realize this is hard, and risky. That's what we want.
As far as the machines you refer to, in-house there is to be an edge taper of our own design. There are no steps in this product that require folding or splicing - these have been eliminated. The coating of the receiver is the concern, and the substrate, as mentioned. Making a new receiver sheet isn't easy since Polaroid kept the process a secret even from their own people, so we do have to nearly start from scratch. Also there is a lot of information, not in our intentionally conservative description, that has been published on
http://new55project.blogspot.com. We put in what we needed to, and even that, as you say, is quite long.
Much of what we make today is via contract. Paper will be converted and die cut and metal parts obtained from the vendors. There isn't much reason to purchase and install roll to roll machinery that only has to run for a week to make the yardage needed for the product. There are several toll coating operations looking for contracts who can do that, for a price. We plan to do assembly, and packaging, here, and have developed handy dark work chambers that have been successful, and can be duplicated.
Thank you for your pledge - the comments you make are right on but you missed one thing - the per sheet price - that is also a common and valid objection. We are trying this on Kickstarter because so many of the interested supporters have insisted on it. The reaction we get from this is very valuable and tells us about the viability, or not, of new large format materials.
Thanks for your support and obviously you know about edge tapers and commercial paper working machinery, I'd welcome your advice on specific aspect of them.
Bob
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