Large contact printer with AIR BAG?

[David A. Goldfarb]

We had one in our high school darkroom, which was also used by a vocational program in offset printing. There was also a big copy camera with the shooting stage in its own room, and a vacuum back that opened into a space adjacent to the darkroom.

I remember the way it worked was you would put your negs emulsion side up on the glass (the bulbs, individually switchable, were underneath), paper face down on the negs, and then you would lower the back. When the lock clicked in, the bag inflated, and when it was full, the lights came on for the exposure and turned off at the end of a preset time. Click--bzhzhzhzhzhzh--zap.

[Peter Galea]

I have one for sale in the Santa Cruz area.
$20.
It is very heavy, I will ship however there may be sticker shock.
PM for further info.

Also an Adams Retouching Machine.
Pete

[Tracy Storer]

A quick iphone shot of the front of the unit, something like 60 switches are for each exposure bulb, there are also switchable safelights etc.......it is heavy. I'm looking forward to giving it a go, once I get the new darkroom built.

[jb7]

I've done some tests using a computer monitor as a light source-
but I concluded that it wasn't possible without a vacuum frame.

However, a monitor will give millions of light sources, controlled graphically by coupling it to a scan of the negative, which can be overlaid by colour layers, acting as filter grades, or areas of greater or lesser brightness, to burn or dodge.

A monitor might be problematic in one sense, that the pixels illuminate over a wide arc, though that problem is not insurmountable, and I reckon it would easily be possible to get definition down to about 3mm.

[rjmeyer314]

I have a Morse contact printer with an air bag. The top pressure plate lacation is fixed when closed and held by a very hefty clamp affair. If you put too much pressure in the air bag and then close the lid you will definitely break the glass. You really don't want much pressure at all in the air bag.