Embrace the easel

[lgrabun]

It won't be very professional question, mind you. I am not good at darkroom vocabulary so please bear with me as I will use, erm, more descriptive than professional language.

Anyway, the easel - at least the one I own - consits of two parts - the white board and four black metal things, say we call them delimiters. Two of those black delimiters have inch/cm scale engraved. I am sure you get the picture.

Now, when I try to make full-sized print, there is no way to do so for the paper goes under those black things thus there's a white margin on a print. What shall I do if I would like to make a print with no margin and don't feel like cuting the margins off?

 

[Lee L]

The black delimiters are usually called "blades" in English.

You can find what you want by looking for "borderless" easels. These have adjustable retaining bars that are set at an angle to hold the paper edges down without blocking light from them. I've seen them made by Delta, Beseler, and Saunders, and I'm sure others have made them as well. The Delta uses magnetic bars with beveled edges. Beseler and Saunders use thumbscrews riding in slots to position the bars.

Lee

 

[lgrabun]

Lee, thanks for a quick and informative answer. I will go and try my luck on e-bay. Cheers!

 

[glbeas]

Theres also the option of making tacky easels with Post-it style adhesive and vacuum easels which is what I prefer and use. It's a pretty good idea if using a vacuum easel to have the pump located outside the darkroom so the noise and dust stirred up will not drive you crazy. I have mine connected by pvc pipe through the wall and a switched power cord running to the pump with the switch next to the enlarger on the table.

 

[Lee L]

Gary,

Thanks for the reminder. I meant to mention a formula in the second edition of The Darkroom Cookbook for a sticky easel coating. It's not in the (current) third edition that I can find. It's Formula #202 and requires water, gelatin, corn syrup, glycerin, and chrome alum. The preparation procedure is too much for me to type in quickly here, but it makes a releasing adhesive for easels that can be covered between uses and recoated.

Lee

 

[fschifano]

I have two of those borderless easels and they are ok for RC paper, but absolutely useless for FB stock. RC papers lie flat by themselves. FB papers tend to have a curl to them. With no blades to hold the paper down, it doesn't quite work.

 

[Bob F.]

If you are using RC paper then a small piece of double-sided adhesive tape in the centre to hold the middle of the paper down will do the job (all RC paper I can remember using bows slightly upwards in the centre). Fibre paper tends to bow the other way and has a more rigid curve so small bits of tape will not work in the same way.