How long has Kentmere Bromide and/or fiber base papers gone ?

[BMbikerider]

That still does not explain the elimination of the Kentmere very good Fibre based papers whilst leaving Kentmere resin coated papers to run alongside Ilford's own products. The tone of the Kentmere resin coated papers has changed markedly from a cool tone and now resembles Ilford Multigrade. Why leave that in production? Kentmere is also slower than it used to be. It was a good stop faster with a harder grade per filter and as I mentioned before the filtration now is exactly the same as Ilford's own. I don't think it is as simple as stated

 

[Lachlan Young]

That still does not explain the elimination of the Kentmere very good Fibre based papers whilst leaving Kentmere resin coated papers to run alongside Ilford's own products. The tone of the Kentmere resin coated papers has changed markedly from a cool tone and now resembles Ilford Multigrade. Why leave that in production? Kentmere is also slower than it used to be. It was a good stop faster with a harder grade per filter and as I mentioned before the filtration now is exactly the same as Ilford's own. I don't think it is as simple as stated

Very simply, the sales of the VCFB & Bromide relative to the costs of manufacturing multiple emulsions (3 for the 3 grades of Bromide & at least 2 for the VC FB) may have been sufficient to support one 3-emulsion cooler toned product, but not more. For all we know, Bromide may well have been being coated on an 18-24 month schedule latterly.

Branding the new paper 'Ilford' & making it on their most efficient plant will have brought costs down & enabled it to be marketed as what is perceived to be the more 'premium' of the two brands. Raising the price to level pegging with MG Classic will have also helped given the (far too low) margins on most photographic materials today. Indeed, doing so may have been critical in preventing a cooltone product disappearing off the market completely.

I do recall that feelers were discreetly being put out in 2011/12 about possible changes to the VCFB paper & it would not surprise me if that informed the Cooltone FB.

The RC stuff is likely to remain as there is still a market for a budget entry-level paper that does not spend a great deal of time worrying over image colour or paper speed. If you were manufacturing a range of papers, unifying the dye sensitisation across all the materials makes massive economic & engineering sense & reduces the potential for QC problems amongst others.

If VCFB matters that much to you, see if you can get Harman to quote for a custom batch...

 

[BMbikerider]

I am sorry I simply do not understand your reasoning! If Kentmere RC was to be classed as a Budget entry level paper why price it at more or less the same as the main brand? Have you any hard information, or professional insite into the workings of Ilford or is what you have said purely anecdotal? I speak as I have found and that is in my opinion based on over 50 years experience of printing, we have lost a damn good printing paper and been left with one that is not quite so good.

I still think there was an element of of asset stripping to cut out the opposition irespective of the state of the old Kentmere factory. Putting it quite simply the Ilford MG either FB or RC paper does not suit my style of printing. The slightly warmer tone of the image does make the print appear to have slightly softer contrast than the Kentmere was capable of; and this cannot simply be corrected by using a harder filter.

 

[AgX]

An outdated [Kentmere] facility with less than adequate worker safety provisions - sounds like the sort of facility that would have been able to sell less expensive paper (for a while).
Production costs nowadays are only a small portion of what ends up as retail cost. Packaging, marketing and distribution costs - they are relatively huge, and they would be the same (now) for Kentmere and Ilford.

What Kentmere facility? As I indicated the Kentmere plant had been rebuilt to manufacture cardboard instead of coating photographic paper.

 

[AgX]

Yes, but internally everything changed.

 

[pentaxuser]

I'd be surprised if under H&S legislation in the U.K. there is any provision for allowing a lower standard to be applied to "lesser/ small companies. If there isn't a lower standard under the law then I fear for the position of any H&S official who turns a slightly blind eye simply because a company has "hit hard times" then finds him or herself in court as a result of a consequence to the workers/ public of an accident that resulted from known illegal lower standards.

Sorry I can't see this as defining why Kentmere was able to have a process passed by H&S which Harman realised, somewhat belatedly, would not be acceptable in Mobberley or indeed Kendall once ownership had transferred to Harman

pentaxuser

 

[John Wiegerink]

Like I said, we'll probably never know the truth!