They were routinely used around here by the big labs, and known for their consistency.
Even Chicago had them
I always wanted to see how one works
Now I have
Tin Can
Had? (Past tense). What happened? Did Al Capone's boys drive in from Cicero and Tommy gun holes into rival bootleg C41 barrels, or what?
At one time Refrema was one of the big names in commercial dip/dunk. There are still a few around. The problem is these machines are only as good as they are maintained.
Same with all machines, Michael. No exceptions. Nothing is foolproof, although it's hard to beat a simple stainless tray for black and white development, at least. All my color sheet film is still being done Refrema.
I'm pretty sure you can still buy new ones. A lab I am familiar with said they did so a couple years ago. Personally I like the new Colenta D&D machine, it has a small foot print and combines B&W w/ C41.
We just bought a 20" Colex RT machine.
Per my friend Edgar Praus, the Refrema processors are the best on the market. That was a few years back, but I suspect that it's still true. Despite the fact that all the machines in this class are designed for professional use, there are differences in build quality from brand to brand.
Over the course of a long career I've operated and maintained many different film and paper processors. Kreonite, Colenta, Hope, Wing-Lynch, Calumet, Kodak, etc., and there are some that were poorly-engineered and cheaply built. Thus making more work for the technicians and sometimes producing poor results.
Others were well-built and reliable; I suspect that the Refremas fall into that category.
I am very glad to have left all of that behind, though.
Refrema Processors were top notch, there was a man by the name of Terry Khan (sp) who would travel North America working on the machines to customize the agitation flow in them, he was legendary in making one of these machines produce even density/contrast development across the entire tank. When I managed Colourgenics here in Toronto we continually won awards with Kodak and Fuji with our control strips that were placed in different positions on the rack and then read at the Manufacturers Labs to see who had a great process control and of course consistent flow of agitation. I was by no means an expert in E6 control , but the owner Charles Chui was IMO the best technician in NA for Process control and we used Terry on a couple of occasions to work on the Refrema. Timeline 1985 - 2000 . Sadly these machines needed film to keep the plots in control and knowing Charles , I suspect the moment his plots were getting impossible to maintain at a very high level he gave it up.
Seems to me we may need these machines again
How many dunks per minute?
Tin Can
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