Several years back, when I was assembling my dark room, I purchased a Gravity Works 20x24 print washer from a local seller at a good price ($200). It was mint - still in the B&H box that it was shipped in - and all the print dividers, except for 3, still had the fly paper attached. My thinking at the time was that the 20x24 washer would work for all my prints up to 20x24 which is the largest size that I print.
Well the 20x24 will handle all my print sizes but it is a monster! I live in an apartment and getting it into the tub thru the shower door is a chore in itself and getting it out means getting into the shower with it. It must weight 300 or 400 pounds when full of water. Needless to say I found myself using it only for prints 16x20 or greater - which are few. The overwhelming majority of my prints are 8x10, 9x12, and 11x14 , and only seldom do I print larger. Tray washing is time consuming (and drudgery!) and for some processes, such as alternative printing, not very practical. For example the final wash for a salted paper print is 40 minutes after a 4 minute bath in sodium sulfite and I've been dropping the 11x12 print into a 16x20 tray in the kitchen sink with a slow stream of water on its backside. Since it take about 45 minutes to expose and process the next print this seemed to work well except that I noticed noticed a collection of bubbles on the underside (print face) upon extraction.
Then about 3 or 4 weeks ago I decided to buy an 11x14 print washer. I remember reading good reviews about the Versalab washer when I was first in the market years ago and sure enough it was advertised in eBay. Even with the recent $25 price hike it seemed to be a good bargain so I called up Laura and ordered one. After about 2 hours of assembly and another 3 or 4 hours of of shopping for the adapters to fit the kitchen nozzle, it was up and running. It's no problem to lift the unit into the kitchen sink, screw on the inlet hose, and adjust the water flow to the correct amount. The incoming water is cycled to a siphon hose located at the bottom of the washer and to the outlet. Neat!
The only hard part is emptying it. It has no drain and weighs about 100 pounds without the divider rack in place. But for me this is no problem. I simply remove the divider rack, place it aside, and lift the unit by the “lips” that conveniently encircle the top , and lift it to the edge of the counter where I can empty the water. Except for the divider rack, the washer is one piece of molded acrylic (?) and seemingly indestructible.
Anyway, I luv my Versalab 11x14 print washer and wish that I had gotten it sooner.
Thomas
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Originally Posted by Roger Thoms
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