So...does anyone regularly develop their prints in drums like Jobo or Unicolor?
I have only/always used trays but, may need to switch to drum development.
It makes me nervous but, I'm not sure why.
I'd like to know if anyone is doing it and if there are any material draw backs.
thanx in advance.
I bought my Jobo to do Cibachrome prints, and did a large number of same before it vanished.
Obviously those machines are designed for color processing, given their built-in water heaters.
You can do B&W at room temperature with no problem. You didn't specify color, B&W or both.
- Leigh
If you believe you can, or you believe you can't... you're right.
I use a Jobo 3063 drum for 20x24, saves space, love it!
Plastic-based papers or film will stay stiffer beside the walls of a drum than fiber-based paper. I don't know how big you can go before the paper would sag and collapse when wet. You'd have to test. You also need more chem because you have to dump it each time, but still need enough in the drum to keep the print
covered the entire length. If you try to reuse or replenish the dev, things get more complicated. I really like drums for color processing, but not for FB black and white prints. I prefer to be able to see, under safelight, when the image is emerging in the developer.
There is one great advantage to developing in drums- you will be forced to get your exposure correct and stop pulling from the developer too soon.
Depends, Jim .... some drum designs fill and drain much better than others. That difference in time, and when the stop bath finally hits, can spell the difference between even development or not, compared to trays. There are also sometimes agitation or internal temp control issues, esp with big drums. Most color processes are done to some completion time/temp point which is standardized. That's not the case with black and white work. There are lots of pros and cons. For one thing, I would never do any kind of conventional color process in trays simply due to the unhealthy fumes, which are easier to control using drums. One of my big 30x40 drum processors is actually built onto a cart which I wheel outdoors in mild weather, and greatly helps me avoid getting sensitized to the color chem. This time of year, as the outdoors is starting to seriously cool down, I shift into my black and white mode with a sink tray line, indoors. But drums are nice in the sense that they require relatively little space.
I use an open-ended drum (6" black ABS DWV pipe from Lowes / Home Depot. They sell those in 24" pieces. I simply tilt my trays to one side fill with about 27 oz of chemistry, and hand roll the drum in dev - stop - fix. I believe you can find long narrow trays made for wallpaper etc. I have to trim 20x24 paper down to 18x24 to get it into the 6" dia. tube (but that is the proportion of my 5x7).
All my color work up to 20x24 is done in Jobo drums but I'm sure you're asking about B&W. Just for the heck of it I tried some B&W fiber based paper in a Jobo drum and as Drew said, fiber in a drum doesn't work very well due to sagging, etc. B&W RC paper will work just fine in drums.
Crap. Like a lot of folks here, I do process B/W only and print on fiber exclusively right now.Originally Posted by Dave Langendonk
I assume the sagging happens regardless of paper size?
You might try a fiberglass screen, such as window screening, to hold the fiber based paper in the drum.
“You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know
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