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making giant prints
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wow, what great responses! thanks everyone
Im really jealous of clydes darkroom, what a beautiful setup. maybe one day if I’m lucky…. really want that 10×8 enlarger
george: hopefully soon enough that junk will have a new home, i just didnt have the patience to be waiting for it! the sooner the better though as i have sinks etc to fit! ive been washing with sponges also and quite liberal with the water, as the paper is resin coated it seems to be working ok. the prints are hanging in a bright place at the moment so ill see soon enough how they stand up to it…
peter: my initial plan was to make some sort of tube construction like that but I havent gotten that far yet, do you have to have something so that the print doesnt stick to itself and stop it from developing evenly? would it really have to be as big as 16″?
tex: i was doing something similar to that but on a much smaller scale before, would be good but i dont have access to any good help!
The tube would need to be big enough so that the paper doesn’t overlap itself.
thefizz wrote:
dubtom wrote:
That drum looks fairly easily make able Peter,the pipe can be got in any builders providers,you can also get the stop ends,although securing one side so it’s removable without leaking would probably be a challenge, although you can get rubber stops that may work,a hole drilled for the smaller pipe with a rubber stop are easily got too. The holders looks very similar to the gadgets that hold waste pipe on walls. Standard waste pipe is 4” but you can get bigger
Yea Tom I priced all the bits last year but it was working out very expensive. Biggest pipe I could find was about 16 inch diameter which would suit a mitre wide print.
I see what you mean Peter,yikes it is expensive. Is aluminium an option,although I’d guess a lot harder to make water tight, but I’ve seen off cuts of around that size in salvage yards many times.
would aluminium react with the chemistry? it salts if you leave water in it…
re tube what if there was some way of keeping the print from touching itelf and allowing the fluid through? some kind of spiral jobbie like one uses for film… was thinking of some kind of netting or something, non absorbant so as not to hold the chems and not to annoying to load?
Isabella wrote:
would aluminium react with the chemistry? it salts if you leave water in it…
re tube what if there was some way of keeping the print from touching itelf and allowing the fluid through? some kind of spiral jobbie like one uses for film… was thinking of some kind of netting or something, non absorbant so as not to hold the chems and not to annoying to load?
Sounds a bit complicated plus you would use a lot more chemistry as you’d be covering the full sheet at once. With the drum I mentioned, you only need a small amount of chemistry as the drum is rolled back and forth to let the chemistry run over the paper.
Sounds a bit complicated plus you would use a lot more chemistry as you’d be covering the full sheet at once. With the drum I mentioned, you only need a small amount of chemistry as the drum is rolled back and forth to let the chemistry run over the paper.
id still rotate, just that the fluid would flow between layers rather than having to accommodate the whole surface in a massive tube… wasnt thinking of any kind of engineering feat, just something to roll up with it to stop it sticking to itself…
it would i guess though have to go at the edges or it might prevent even development wherever it touches. that would also mean that it (they/whatever) would want to be big enough that the paper wouldnt droop or sag in the middle…. hmm maybe it is too complicated for the moment…
ill give the window boxes a go for the minute i think, its still a vast improvement on my current methods
a thought just occurred to me, what about one of those big blue plastic barrels? sometimes you see them being sold on the side of the road… they are used for all sorts of things – feed bins, troughs, water barrels etc, but they might be big enough for whats required and shouldnt cost too much.
how to seal it then is the next problem… first you cut the top off to open. inverted it fits in quite well but…..
It would need to be the same diameter from top to bottom or the print would probably get kinks.
the ones im thinking of are… sometimes get them at coops
**edit: or E15 on done deal…
Cool setup Isabella! That print looks nice. Will you be taking a picture of it? Curious to see the final result.
Isabella, love your print, thanks for sharing you got a great little discussion going, a few mods as suggested will improve the process but I do like the rough and ready approach and its slightly unpredictable imperfect results. Love to see some more large prints.
thanks eddie and james… yes i’ll take a picture of them as soon as I get around to charging the battery on my digital :wink: yet another reason to love analogue!
hi all, here’s some digital shots of the prints… sorry it took so long to get them up here.
the papers gloss so all the lights in the space are reflected…
the images are from a series entitled ‘Home’
the first one is the better of the two, I have better prints of the second but they are much smaller and not in square format. the messy method also shows more in the second, in the form of drip marks which are especially prevalent in the lower right portion of the image.
Isabella, love your prints especially the one with the dog, something special about that one, I like compositions that have lots of elements included in the image, thanks for sharing.
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