Easel for 12 x 12” paper?

I’ve been thinking about making some 12” by 12” enlargements, but my largest easel right now is an 11” x 14”. I don’t really want to buy a four-blade easel right now. I was wondering if anyone has ever seen a square-format easel before, specifically for 12x12 or 24x24? Considering the popularity of Hasselblad/Rollei cameras in the 70’s through 90’s I have to believe that someone must have made something catering to that market.

I have bladed 16"x20" 20"x24" easels.

4 bladed easel makes square prints from rectangular paper. I have never heard of square printing paper.

Ilford has 10" x 10" paper on their list of SKUs.

ic-racer said:

4 bladed easel makes square prints from rectangular paper. I have never heard of square printing paper.

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I cut it from a bulk roll of 24” resin-coated. I know Ilford sells 10x10, but my understanding is that 12x12 is a more common size for mattes and frames.

... and that that was the reason Patterson sells a 12” by 16” processing tray

It's pretty easy to make a borderless easel using black melamine. Just screw a fence along the top edge to butt your paper to and another down one side to register against - I make a point of making the second one square to the top one, but even that isn't critical. If you think you are going to print 24x24" squares, make the easel 25x25, or longer if you think you might print some bigger rectangles later.

If you want it to look nice, or if you're worried about fresh sawn edges showing particle board cores you could spray paint those edges flat black before attaching the fences. Or, peel and stick black tape Is available at any cabinet hardware supply house, maybe even Home Depot or Lowe's.

If you don't want to make an easle you can always use a paper box top - tape it in place so it doesn't slide around as you work in the dark.

I have an old easel which works with 12"x16" paper, so would be fine for 12"x12" paper as well.
I'm guessing that it may have come from the UK.

You can always use a sheet of glass and make borderless prints. I don't know of any easels that offered square prints with borders directly except for the Saunders Single Size 5x7 with adjustable bar that provided for 5x5 prints. The easiest approach would be to use a 4-bladed or 2 bladed adjustable 16x20 easel. The 2 bladed variety are usually fairly inexpensive.

waffles said:

... and that that was the reason Patterson sells a 12” by 16” processing tray

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The reason Paterson (and others) sell 12x16 inch trays is that 30x40cm (approx. 12x16 inches) is a very popular and standard size in Europe. I have a stash of Slavich 30x40cm paper that fits nicely in my Paterson trays and print washers.There may be 30x40cm easels available also, but likely from Europe. A quick check on eBay should tell the tale.

If you want prints with borders, the next most-practical solution would be to go to the next larger size four-bladed easel; in your case, 16x20 inches, and then use the blades to crop down to 12x12. The other option would be to make something yourself, say out of mat board or whatever, with some provision for positioning the paper on the bottom board and a hinged window to crop square and hold the paper in place.

If you want to print borderless, you don't even need an easel for RC paper. Just use tape to fasten some positioning guides to your baseboard and you're good to go.

Best,

Doremus

Waffles if you know anyone with a laser printer capable of cutting rigid plastic such as a friendly local workshop or have a contact in a school with such equipment in its design and technology workshop then the border for a 12x12 can be cut in a few moment and placed into a MDF box of the right size which can be easily constructed.

pentaxuser

MattKing said:

Ilford has 10" x 10" paper on their list of SKUs.

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That is interesting. So, you could put 10x10" in a 4-blade easel in the 8x10" slot.
8" x 8" paper; no. Though one could make a spacer to fit in an existing slot.

Go to youtube and search "shoot film like a boss", which is a generally good channel.

This photographer likes larger square prints and uses a matboard cut with the correct size window, plus a smidgen or out sized border.

He makes his prints using these taped down to his table, using angle brackets, to weight the board flat upon the paper.

After this, he has a board to mask the entire print, that uses the slightly over cut window to allow a thin line black border all the way around the print edges.

Its just that easy and if you are no able to cut windows on your own, just buy some heavy rag board at your most trusted art store (or take what you have) and pay to have windows cut to the sizes you want to use.

I suggest you have two sets cut each time, so there is always a spare when you spill your Absinthe, in the wrong direction.

I also want to suggest using a thicker sheet of iron/steel cut oversize to the outer mat, which would allow you to use middle of the road strength, ceramic magnets, like Harbor Freight sells in pairs to hold down the board and print, then masks.

The reason for this is, you can mount the working boards to their own iron base, and when no in use, file them away in a multi slotted wall, open face cabinet, so the are protected from becoming ill adjusted when stored flat or left lying about.

I built one of these for my last darkroom before moving here and for ease of operation, I took sheet cardboard, such as contractors will place over finished floors, cut it and bent two sides down on the top and bottom, into a 1.5 -2in. straight fold, which I simply stapled into a vertical positioned, starting at the far side of the wooden cabinet which, I could then slide each easel into when no at uses, including my good metal easels.

Depending on the largest (thickest) size used, you can easily keep a dozen easels ready to go, a simply reach away from or by your printing station.

IMO.

voceumana said:

You can always use a sheet of glass and make borderless prints. I don't know of any easels that offered square prints with borders directly except for the Saunders Single Size 5x7 with adjustable bar that provided for 5x5 prints. The easiest approach would be to use a 4-bladed or 2 bladed adjustable 16x20 easel. The 2 bladed variety are usually fairly inexpensive.

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Is there such a thing as a 2-blade 16x20 easel? The largest I’ve heard of until today was an 11x14

waffles said:

Is there such a thing as a 2-blade 16x20 easel? The largest I’ve heard of until today was an 11x14

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Yes - I have one.
Like this: https://www.kijiji.ca/v-camera-camc...-2-blade-enlarging-easel/1488766492?undefined