Contact-Printers.

[Keith Tapscott.]

Where could I buy a contact-printer as mentioned in Kodak publication G10 for the discontinued Azo papers which I have copied and pasted below?

EXPOSURE
Contact printers generally have a very high level of
illumination. In order to keep exposure times within reason,
contact printing papers, such as AZO Paper, are made with a
relatively low speed. Therefore, it’s not practical to use
contact papers with an enlarger as a light source.
A contact printer is a glass-top box with exposing lights
and a safelight inside, and hinged pressure cover over the
glass. Switches control the lights that allow different
intensities to various parts of the image.

[Paul O]

Hi Keith, I seem to remember that you can buy them from Bostick & Sullivan in the US but most UK-based printers seem to make their own. There are design plans on the internet and designs incorporate a variety of lamp types. If you look on the Film and Darkroom User website (UK-based) I'm sure Trevor Crone has recently posted a step-by-step guide as to how he built his - I think he used a set of drawers as a base?

[Keith Tapscott.]

Hi Keith, I seem to remember that you can buy them from Bostick & Sullivan in the US but most UK-based printers seem to make their own. There are design plans on the internet and designs incorporate a variety of lamp types. If you look on the Film and Darkroom User website (UK-based) I'm sure Trevor Crone has recently posted a step-by-step guide as to how he built his - I think he used a set of drawers as a base?Hi Paul,
I have posted a question for Trevor about exposing Lodima.:)

[John Bowen]

Keith,

A lot of us that contact print on Azo/Lodima use a bare light bulb over either a vacuum easel or contact printing frame. The details about which bulb to use can be found on the Azo forum. For Lodima, look under the Lodima section.

I happen to use one of the Azo Enlarging heads built just for enlarging on Azo, while I don't do much enlarging on Azo, I like being able to use a timer and Fred Picker's 3 second burst method of exposure. Oh yeah, I've also found a vacuum easel to be much more efficient than a contact printing frame.

If you want one of the contact printers metioned in the Kodak guide, I'd keep my eyes on Ebay. They used to pop up every now and then. Mostly for 4x5 or 5x7 prints, but every once in a while a big military grade printer would come up with about 74,000 light bulbs to control the exposure.

[Doug Howk]

Somewhere up in my attic I have one where you press down on the lever and the light in the unit comes on. Its for 4X5s, I believe.

Instead, I'd suggest a Doug Kennedy contact printing frame for they provide even pressure; and the split back works well for alternative processes too.

[Robert Hughes]

I just use my bathroom lights - on for, eh, about 4 or 5 seconds.

So why do my prints come out all black?:confused: