Alternative to Upper/Lower Glass Negative Carriers

[Chuck Pere]

I've found that Tmax films have more of a problem with emulsion side Newton rings. For those I need to use AN glass top and bottom.

[Drew Wiley]

A number of modern thin-emulsion films are Newton-ring prone. Acros sheet film is worse than Tmax, Delta maybe worse, Tech Pan way worse. It helped when retouch tooth was once applied to at least the base side of sheet films. Kodak's color neg sheets now have some kind of coating that allegedly improves scanning; but I find it helpful in reducing rings. Arista Ortho Litho has a deliberate mico-texture to facilitate vacuum drawdown; but it eliminates rings too. Antinewton sprays exist; but they're a pain in the butt.

[Eric Woodbury]

Glass on the bottom, diffusion-type plexiglass on the top. Gaffer's tape hinge. AN glass not required. Mask the light outside the negative with black tape or rubylith.

No Newton rings and no visible dust from top layers. If you like your lilies gold-plated, use Satinice plastic and Tru Vue glass.

I've been using this combo for several years now; from 35mm to 8x10.

[Drew Wiley]

Plexi is an esp bad choice because it readily bows toward heat sources. It also long-term affected by humidity. But it might be OK somehat thick with a cool light source. Very electrostatic too, a dust magnet in vicinity of a blower.

[neil poulsen]

Which enlarger?

If my memory serves me well, Carlwen (mfg) used to make glassless carriers which actually stretched the film taunt. . . .

Zone VI also made these "stretch" 8x10 negative carriers for their Type II enlarger, which is what I have. They also made them for smaller negative sizes; but, I heard that they didn't work all that well for those sizes. I remember Fred Picker writing that he had seen the idea used by some other manufacturer. It may have been Carlwen?

For all negative sizes, I'm using a diffusion source? Wonder if that will help keep them from popping?

Thanks for all the responses. They're encouraging enough that I should give this a try.

[Christopher Barrett]

I've been thinking about this a bit. I have plenty of drum mounting fluid on hand for my scanner. The modern stuff isn't oil based, but a bit more like alcohol in that it just dissolves pretty quickly when exposed to air, leaving the neg and surfaces quite clean. I'll have to try it out in my glass carrier.

[Keith Pitman]

Neil,

This is the glass 8x10 negative carrier I made for the Zone VI 8x10 enlarger. The body is a opaque PVC plastic called Komatex, which has a foam core and smooth surfaces on the outside. It machines very well on a router table. The aluminum pieces on the sides and back are just ordinary bar stock. They slide into the slots on the the enlarger head. The front is aluminum angle which forms the handle. Attached to the aluminum angle is the clip that locks the negative carrier in place in the enlarger. Overall a pretty simple thing to make. In the picture with the carrier in place, the fabric under the carrier can be pulled up to block any light leak, which is pretty small. Right now I have a bottom glass and a milky acrylic top to cover the negative. I am trying to source a custom size of AN glass.

I also have one of these glass negative carriers for 4x10 negatives for the 8x10 enlarger, and I've made similar 4x5 and 5x7 glass negative carriers for the 5x7 enlarger using similar materials.

[Richard Wasserman]

Focal Point says they do custom size AN glass, but only up to 30x30 inches—

http://www.fpointinc.com/glass.htm

[Keith Pitman]

Thanks. I’ve tried to contact Focal Point, but no response yet. His Ebay site says he’s out of town.

[neil poulsen]

Neil, This is the glass 8x10 negative carrier I made for the Zone VI 8x10 enlarger.

Keith, Very cool. Thanks for offering this information. The construction of the Zone VI makes it fairly convenient to design various negative carriers. Versus using a 5x7 head, I was thinking of using the 8x10 setup for 5x7 negatives. Again, it would be fairly easy to design a negative carrier for this using the 8x10 head.