Using the following tube design, you can process an 8x10 sheet evenly in daylight with
LESS than 0.25 liters of each chemical (which is sufficient to not become exhausted on that one sheet. I get by just fine with 4 oz. of similar chemicals per 4x5, which is about 1/4 less than this. If you want more, just decrease the inner tube diameter a bit, but a whole liter is silly much), and you can make this yourself for $10 in plumbing parts or so. It's just a 2" PVC class 200 tube inside of a 2.5" one, held together with a bushing. You roll each piece of film so that the emulsion side is facing inward, slide it into its tube, and then fill with enough chemical to cover the film but not completely full. Then you can put the cap on and invert the tube back and forth for extremely effective and evenly distributed agitation. Bushings are usually flat on the end, too, so you can stand it upright and let it sit, too.
The nominal 2.5" pipe actually has an internal diameter of 2.6 or so inches, which is enough for an 8" wide sheet of film to not overlap itself at all.
Note that if you are processing with lights on, beware that PVC is somewhat transluscent. I have found that spraypainting black and then wrapping with heavy black duct tape or gaffers tape makes it completely opaque though.
Attachment 99835
So your $167 would be more like $40.
This does require one sided film though, which means either mammography film or scraping your film with bleach, etc. Depending on how much you value your time, that could be somewhere between maybe $20 to $65 more expensive per sheet than the film you quoted (There is an 8x10 sony mammography 1 sided film for $1 a sheet)
Let's say $40 more for film to compromise. Total still ends up being $115 instead of $202. Of course even less if using powder mixes or DIY chemicals, etc. Could probably get down to $0.75 a sheet.
Originally Posted by Jim Fitzgerald
thats quite a list of hidden talents there
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