Film coating machine (homemade) on Flickr

Steve Smith · Nov 9, 2012

Mustafa Umut Sarac said:
When you aim to things you can not afford , its fantasy. Do you know the cost of cutting four gear from steel , align at a base and rotate them when you are feeding the film with many other gear train. Its hell of money

Indeed. The owner of a company I used to work for would tell his customers "you can have anything you like, whenever you want it as long as you can afford it".

I wouldn't expect a small scale home emulsion coater to buy the parts for a rotary die cutter. I would do it with a miniature version of a paper hole punch with pins to register the cut to the previous cut holes. This would be very easy to set up.

Steve.

michaelbsc · Nov 10, 2012

Athiril said:
I agree, but why would you NEED to print numbers? ...

My RB67, P6 TL, and several TLRs do index the film without numbers.

But the folders and box cameras all have a window.

And I *LIKE* my Mother's Brownie Hawkeye.

I do agree that sheet film is a lot easier. And even at the width of 120 I have a bunch of 2.35x3.25 holders.

Plus i have a stash (No! It's not a hoard!) of glass window panes. So I too would probably try very little roll film.

When I think about the possibility of home manufacturer I invariably think small scale, dozens instead of thousands. The investment to make occasional new backing paper seems trivial compared to a perforating machine. Unless you can get or fabricate the perfing machine vey inexpensively.

For a small manufacturing operation, say 5K rolls of film, a usable perfing machine begins to make sense. And you could sell the film packed in a wrapper for the user to spool. Eschewing the cassettes.

I have some oddball FSU film in my freezer which is packed this way. It's just a strip of perforated 35mm film. The user had to load it in a cassette.

Some of the old Contax cameras had a refillable cassette.

MB

michaelbsc · Nov 10, 2012

Steve Smith said:
Indeed. The owner of a company I used to work for would tell his customers "you can have anything you like, whenever you want it as long as you can afford it".

I used to work for his metaphysical twin in a metrology laboratory. In metrology each extra zero at the right of the decimal costs geometrically more money.

Occasionally someone would complain if we calibrated something to one or two decimal places. Wes would tell them just bring it back and they could get as many zeros as they could pay for.

MB

filmplease · Aug 4, 2013

This may be a far fetched question, but I am looking for a way to use my pretty much useless Kodak Colorburst 250 made in 1979. I am aware the film is unattainable and that Fujifilm had a similar film but is also unavailable due to scarcity. So, my question is there anyone out there who can possibly make film that can be used in my Kodak Colorburst 250?

Photo Engineer · Aug 4, 2013

By hand coating, probably yes.

Radek Brzozowski · Dec 13, 2013

you may be right about the return to the craftsperson-driven cottage industry. The problem is that means limited capacity and volume. This also means higher cost per unit and limitations as to what can be done. Will we have creafspeople turning out Kodak Gold 400 equivalents? I don't think so. Hand coated glass plate negatives? We already do

Photo Engineer · Dec 13, 2013

Radek;

There are a lot of coatings that are being made on glass, film and paper. Multilayers are possible. I have made full color multilayers by hand coating and they made rather good images.

The real problem is getting people willing to LEARN. It seems that few are interested in this, and the basic technology is slipping away bit by bit.

PE

Prest_400 · Dec 14, 2013

Mirko of Adox visited the New Ferrania and he mentioned that they are trying to convert the R&D department into what will be the production machine for their coming film production.
IIRC, if they have a nice pilot machine with a big yet small enough capacity, it could be quite feasible.

PE, as of knowledge and a bit OT. Of those 40 people that were fired from the film production at Kodak, you mentioned the simple wage economics... Younger workers with lower costs replacing the older ones. But were they into the core production of film?
I think not, as the cost of training a young engineer mut be all but small! Sadly the tech is slowly slipping away...

Photo Engineer · Dec 14, 2013

Kodak has 3 coating machines in R&D and one in production for pilot coatings. These could be used to make small quantities of films if they really wanted to slow down production. But, with little R&D the training of an engineer is pretty much rote and can be passed on. They are making the same things every day, not making something new.

But, if they shut down, it is truly lost and there are few out here in the world interested in learning.

PE

RattyMouse · Dec 15, 2013

We here every last bit of news about Kodak's film group shrinking, but news from Fujifilm is silent (aside from which films are lost). I wonder how small Fujfilm's coating facilities and staff have gotten. I guess we'll never really know.

RattyMouse · Dec 15, 2013

Now that this thread has been brought back to life, whatever happened to the Australian coating machine? Did he ever get it running successfully?

Photo Engineer · Dec 15, 2013

It has been stalled due to the severe weather in AU.

PeterB · Dec 16, 2013

Photo Engineer said:
It has been stalled due to the severe weather in AU.

If this weather is termed severe then bring it on I say !

SYDNEY AREA

Photo Engineer · Dec 16, 2013

Peter, how about the flooding? Did you forget that?

PE

PeterB · Dec 17, 2013

mmm.... those floods seem so long ago and so far away. I live in Sydney where we rarely have flooding issues. Last major floods in OZ were in/near Bundaberg on Jan 28th 2013 and prior to that in SE Qld in January 2011.

Radek Brzozowski · Dec 22, 2013

There is a group trying to learn where I am Not sufficient success (I am at the stage of getting a workable black and white emulsion to coat glass but still need to work out hardening). It is hard getting access to knowledge with our own photochemical industry destroyed in the early 1990s

Photo Engineer · Dec 22, 2013

Radek, the best hardener for glass plates is chrome alum, the blue stuff!

You can find instructions here on APUG or in many texts.

However, if you stay at 20C or lower, you do not always need a hardener as long as your glass is clean.

PE

Prest_400 · Dec 22, 2013

RattyMouse said:
We here every last bit of news about Kodak's film group shrinking, but news from Fujifilm is silent (aside from which films are lost). I wonder how small Fujfilm's coating facilities and staff have gotten. I guess we'll never really know.

That is something I too noticed and it's quite a curiosity. We don't have anyone who knows directly about the operation of Fuji.

Could speculate that they don't have that huge capacity as they given up MP film (which for Kodak is the gross volume, but could have been for Fuji too). So the whole machinery is now dedicated to just still film.
I recall other uses for the coaters, surely mentioned by PE around here. IIRC, Kodak worked on OLED tech which needed some kind of film coated.

Back to the topic...
The operation around the machine is halted, but the machine is fine despite the flood episodes?

Radek Brzozowski · Dec 22, 2013

Thanks PE - I am trying both pure chrome alum and a mixture with formaline as recommended by one of researchers from what used to be Polish photographic industry. My suspicion is I store the alum solution too long

VaryaV · Dec 22, 2013

This is by far the most interesting and exciting thread I have ever read. From start to finish I was on the edge of my seat. Please keep it going if at all possible!

ps. The smell of formalin and formaldehyde used to permeate my dads lab when I was growing up! I will NEVER forget THE smell!

Photo Engineer · Feb 14, 2016

Just to update this thread.

Mark and Nick now have the small coating machine, the slitter and the perforating machine all operational and have made 35 mm film for in-camera use and for motion picture use. They also have the option of making emulsions using pumps. This is a work in progress, but take a peek at their Facebook pages for some results!

These guys are doing a great job and I am very happy to be able to help when I can.

PE

Athiril · Feb 14, 2016

That sounds fantastic. What's the name of their page?

Prof_Pixel · Feb 14, 2016

Athiril said:
That sounds fantastic. What's the name of their page?

Eastman Museum Historic Photographic Process Education

https://www.facebook.com/groups/507357829374966/

AgX · Feb 15, 2016

Their Facebook site is restricted to Facebook members.

Is that coater originating from Kodak Park?

perkeleellinen · Feb 15, 2016

Not sure if this will work without a log in, but here's a direct link to one of the results photos:

Dead Link Removed

Film coating machine (homemade) on Flickr

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