Condit - What are these?

Attachment 185213

What are these? I have a set of 4. Two flat and two pointy.

Thanks in advance,

Marco

Pin bars. You have to have a matching hole punch. You punch the edge of film, which allows you to perfectly line up more than one sheet. That's useful for masking.

Of no use without a matching punch. Those aren't Condit-style anyway, but made by them to match old Kodak punches, perhaps.

Drew's right about the bottom one. I have a Kodak punch and pin bar, and the bottom one looks the same. I don't know what system the top one is for.

Thanks,

Silly question, but what does the punch look like?

Marco

Think of an old three-hole metal paper punch (some people actually used these - the good Boston paper punches), except two hole. That would fairly describe Kodak punches. Modern punches look and are quite a bit more precise. The Condit system mainly used micro-pins, about 1/16" diameter, and not 1/4" or oval holes. Current punch manufacturers include Olec-Stosser and Ternes Burton; but these are for larger graphics films or plates, and also useful for alt printers. Punches and registration surfaces should be purchased at the same time, to be certain they're precisely matched. Of course, a machinist could make their own gear. Durst also had a system, but their punches are now impossible to find. I adapted my Durst carriers to my Condit punches and frames.

http://www.maskingkits.com/carriers.htm

Larger pins are conventional not only for dye transfer matrice film, but for any kind of photocomposition, graphics arts applications, pre-press protocol (prior to the dominance of scanners), or various alt photo processes - all kinds of applications using large sizes of film. Just go to the INDUSTRIAL section of E-Bay (not the photographic section), and you can find all kinds of this equipment, both used and new. It's still being made, and some of the punches and registration surfaces are quite large, bearing multiple points of registration, and not just two pins like the early Kodak version. This is because Eastman pre-punched their Pan Matrix Film with just two holes. This was intended for making separations directly onto dye transfer matrices from color negatives. It was far more common to first make separations from color chrome film instead, onto intermediate black-and-white film (involving complex masking too), using small film punches and registration frames bearing micro-pins. This same smaller gear is highly useful today for other kinds of darkroom masking work. Incidentally, even though Ctein is the last person I know of to have specialized in the Pan Matrix Film approach, his smaller complete set of Condit equipment is up for sale. Contact him directly if you're interested (just Google his name). Matched sets don't come up very often.