Film coating machine (homemade) on Flickr

[Photo Engineer]

Note the previous comments. This is about 3 years old and nothing new has been posted.

I wonder what is going on........

PE

 

[holmburgers]

On 10-15-10 photo researcher had this to say;

Yes indeed Chris,I am researching the making of a color reversal film of the Kodachrome process type. This has actually been a project since I built the coating machine some years ago and has occupied most all of my time since!
Although I have worked in photo technology for fifty years,actually putting together a full color multi layer material is daunting.
Results so far are quite exciting but when it comes to combining all the elements
I know it will be tough.
Because of my past employment I have acquired a large number of the chemicals needed so I am lucky in this respect.
Soon I will start to communicate some of my work but I hope those interested will be patient, as sitting in front of a computer is not one of my favorite pastimes.

Cheers.

XXXXXXX
Photo Researcher

I'll reach out to him again and see if there is any new progress. I've offered to act as his "communications liason", but never heard anything back. It seems that his last statement is not an understatement!

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic", delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on April 23, 1910:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

-- President Theodore Roosevelt​

Ken

 

[holmburgers]

Hear hear!

 

[Ray Rogers]

Chris, I am very sorry to say that
I feel I must publicly admonish you for posting that communication.

He obviously wants privacy.

He wrote to you, most likely with the idea you would respect an implied understanding of "just between you and me".

I do not think you should have posted that and
I think it should be removed.

(Did he gave you permission to post that material? ...
If so, I apologize big time!)

 

[holmburgers]

Ok, edited to maintain a better level of privacy for PR. The remaining message is pretty harmless and I don't feel that it violates his privacy. If other's feel the same as Ray, please PM me and tell me so. I realize that my level of comfort with regards to online privacy probably differs from others and so it's certainly possible that some things that I don't bat an eye at would make other's skin crawl.

My thinking in posting this communication was that of a journalist; sharing the facts. Photoresearcher is self-admittedly not fond of the computer, and it occured to me that perhaps I had a "rare document" that would be of interest to anyone awaiting word on his project. By including his name (removed now) I thought in some naive way that maybe it was only fair; to give the credit to an actual person and not just an online persona.

Ray, I definitely see your point and concede to a degree, but in life and online, I'd rather push someone's comfort zone for the greater good than shy away for fear of the potential and thus leave nothing for nobody.

 

[Ray Rogers]

Ray, I definitely see your point and concede to a degree, but in life and online, I'd rather push someone's comfort zone for the greater good than shy away for fear of the potential and thus leave nothing for nobody.

I think you did the right thing.

There certainly is a grey area when one is given information
yet not specifically instructed NOT to allow it to be passed on.

I am actively documenting this stuff myself,
so I run into the problem all the time...
but strangely, some people inexplicatively fall down when pushed!

Maybe he doesn't mind a bit and will ask you to be his "electronic interface" afterall.

 

[holmburgers]

Thanks Ray, let's hope so!

 

[MrBaz]

Very interested in this thread. Subbed.

 

[Jeff Kubach]

Very Impressive!

Jeff

 

[MrBaz]

Any updates?

 

[spacer]

Getting kodachrome back would be sweet, even if under another name...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZpaNJqF4po

 

[Photo Engineer]

It is very difficult to replicate the Kodachrome film emulsions and coatings. It is just as difficult to replicate the process!

I seriously doubt if we will see anything but high quality B&W films from this effort.

PE

 

[holmburgers]

I've been corresponding with photo researcher a bit lately and it sounds like he's making good progress. Very interesting stuff!

I've encouraged him to post some images, so fingers crossed.

 

[EdoNork]

Is it finished yet?

 

[holmburgers]

Not finished, but going well. PR is working very hard on it, and I've been in touch with him recently. I'm afraid all will have to wait a bit longer though...

 

[paul ron]

Very impressive. I hope this inspires small fsctory film manufacturing, like micro breweries, to start popping up all over the place as the big boys take a nose dive.

Thanks for the tour.

 

[holmburgers]

Seemed like the appropriate place to post this...

This Laboratory Drawdown Coater looks awesome -> Dead Link Removed

 

[Steve Smith]

Awesome indeed... and quite a simple thing to make.


Steve.

 

[michaelbsc]

Seemed like the appropriate place to post this...

This Laboratory Drawdown Coater looks awesome -> Dead Link Removed

Well, the difference between this and the ones I've seen is that all I have ever seen spray the fluid up and coat from the bottom, not the top.

I suspect that a top fed coater would have an issue that as the feed hopper fill height varied then the coating thickness would vary. But maybe not, or at least maybe not within a close enough range.

I do think you could modify this thing to keep it continuously fed with coating material, but you would have to have some way to dry the coating before rolling it up. That's going to take a bit of floor space in a dark area. And with no way to inspect your product before slitting your emulsion defects will be pretty hit or miss.

But what the hell, some film is better than no film, right?

MB

 

[Photo Engineer]

This is very similar to Jim Browning's coater and also to my coating blade. It uses a doctor blade to surface the coating layer and adjust the thickness. Excess is collected and recycled.

PE

 

[michaelbsc]

Awesome indeed... and quite a simple thing to make.


Steve.

And probably cheaper than to purchase. The quote from them came in at 6500.00 USD, but you must consider that this is new, with warranty, and expecting to be serviced, and prepared to offer support to an industrial customer instead of a hobby market.

All in all, it probably isn't too outrageous for an industrial customer that wants a coater that "just works out of the box" and doesn't want to fool with it. But it is a bit steep for a guy in a hobby market. I certainly have paid more than that for industrial equipment that "just works" although not quite something as simple as this looks.

But I'll bet something turns up on fleaBay once in a whole lots cheaper.

 

[Discoman]

Well, the difference between this and the ones I've seen is that all I have ever seen spray the fluid up and coat from the bottom, not the top.

I suspect that a top fed coater would have an issue that as the feed hopper fill height varied then the coating thickness would vary. But maybe not, or at least maybe not within a close enough range.

I do think you could modify this thing to keep it continuously fed with coating material, but you would have to have some way to dry the coating before rolling it up. That's going to take a bit of floor space in a dark area. And with no way to inspect your product before slitting your emulsion defects will be pretty hit or miss.

But what the hell, some film is better than no film, right?

MB

Don't these kinds of machines use rollers to get the coating thickness desired, then used a sized blade to cut the coating from the roller and drop it onto the film/paper/whatever?
I had a PDF of a really old book that had some detailed drawings of glass plate coating machines that worked like that.

 

[Photo Engineer]

That is probably correct, that a roller and doctor blade (name of the blade) is used, but it may just use a dip and blade or a cascade and blade. There are a multitude of methods out there. They all work in one way or another.

The coating blades that I have sold are like that and we used a variety of similar methods at EK.

PE

 

[Prof_Pixel]

In browsing around the Kodak website I ran across the following for the Small Scale Slide Hopper Coater: http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=14809/14845/2301126&pq-locale=en_US

Note that several other coating machines can also be found by following links from that page.