Kodak Register Punch and register pin bar.

[koraks]

Hey, that's very interesting @Mick Fagan ! Thanks for digging that up. Yes, certainly interested; it looks like a really close match - that can't be a coincidence!

My scale is also in cm/mm, but I bet the pitch between those closely spaced pins is exactly 2.5".

I've PM-ed you about this; thanks so much again!

 

[Lachlan Young]

Hey, that's very interesting @Mick Fagan ! Thanks for digging that up. Yes, certainly interested; it looks like a really close match - that can't be a coincidence!
View attachment 404929
My scale is also in cm/mm, but I bet the pitch between those closely spaced pins is exactly 2.5".

I've PM-ed you about this; thanks so much again!

Can confirm it will match up with the narrow spaced pair of punches, it's the one you want for 4x5 etc.

 

[koraks]

Can confirm it will match up with the narrow spaced pair of punches, it's the one you want for 4x5 etc.

Thanks a bunch; @Mick Fagan has promptly responded to me with additional measurements. I made some on my end as well and they match Mick's nearly perfectly, so I don't doubt it's the bar that goes with the punch I have here. Here are my measurements, taken with a cheap digital caliper on a punched piece of RC paper, so the measurements will be something like +/-0.2mm or so.

The flat section in the center of the holes seems to have a width of 4.2mm, so the rounded ends are about 1.0-1.1mm each.

At some point I drew a set of pins in Fusion and 3D printed them; they were a pretty good match:

These are also 4.20x4.60 for the small ones and 11.60x4.80 for the large ones. IDK if I really tested the large ones very diligently so that may have to be 4.60 like the small ones. I printed these as individual pins and then arranged them on a support using a piece of punched material to get the alignment. I taped these to a couple of layers of yupo material (because I had some scraps...) This worked quite well, although evidently nowhere near as nice as some proper pins.
My project got sort of stuck/bookshelved at the point of having to re-do my contact printing frame to allow a recess for the registration system. So that's still on my to-do list.

 

[DREW WILEY]

That kind of casual measurement and style of mfg might be OK for a highly diffused masking setup, but would be highly questionable for precision tricolor work. But in this case, you might get lucky and land with something standardized to begin with. Yupo isn't dimensionally stable, so I don't get that. Good luck with your project.

ACT (American Circuit Technology) still offers oval as well as round pins and tabs. The new frontier of film registration
involves printed circuits; but they also supply pins to the graphics and arts trades. They can also custom manufacture offset step pins like Condit used, but that would probably require a high-volume group order to make it realistic. I wouldn't mind having half a dozen spare pins on hand, but not 6,000.

I discovered that later versions of Condit had more consistent micro pins about .002 inch smaller than the earlier ones
which were machined out of 1/16" dia brass stock. Stainless micro-dowel pins are readily available in both 1/16th diameter and a slightly different metric diameter, but not with the convenient offset stepped feature which is the most desirable. Still, by drilling your registration bar holes just a tiny bit bigger diameter, you can precisely epoxy your pins in if a pre-punched sheet of dimensionally stable film or shim stock is on hand as the exact positioning template. Never use "10-minute" epoxy; only the overnight thin liquid type.

Another trick would be to cannibalize used registration strips, which are abundant under graphics and printing industry listings, along with used punches.

It appears that Ternes Burton is down to a one man operation nearing retirement, with more limited options than before.

 

[Carnie Bob]

That kind of casual measurement and style of mfg might be OK for a highly diffused masking setup, but would be highly questionable for precision tricolor work. But in this case, you might get lucky and land with something standardized to begin with. Yupo isn't dimensionally stable, so I don't get that. Good luck with your project.

ACT (American Circuit Technology) still offers oval as well as round pins and tabs. The new frontier of film registration
involves printed circuits; but they also supply pins to the graphics and arts trades. They can also custom manufacture offset step pins like Condit used, but that would probably require a high-volume group order to make it realistic. I wouldn't mind having half a dozen spare pins on hand, but not 6,000.

I discovered that later versions of Condit had more consistent micro pins about .002 inch smaller than the earlier ones
which were machined out of 1/16" dia brass stock. Stainless micro-dowel pins are readily available in both 1/16th diameter and a slightly different metric diameter, but not with the convenient offset stepped feature which is the most desirable. Still, by drilling your registration bar holes just a tiny bit bigger diameter, you can precisely epoxy your pins in if a pre-punched sheet of dimensionally stable film or shim stock is on hand as the exact positioning template. Never use "10-minute" epoxy; only the overnight thin liquid type.

Another trick would be to cannibalize used registration strips, which are abundant under graphics and printing industry listings, along with used punches.

It appears that Ternes Burton is down to a one man operation nearing retirement, with more limited options than before.

Thanks Drew- I am going to buy some pins from this group... You are right Ternes Burton is closing down I think, hard to get stuff from them

 

[koraks]

Yupo isn't dimensionally stable

Yeah it is. Sufficiently so for this purpose. But as I said, I had it lying around. It'll work way well enough here; if I need nanometer precision, I'll ask asml.

Keep in mind that this is for contact printing in my case.

 

[DREW WILEY]

For small templates and sizing masks, I keep on hand a lot of old Ciba sheets, which was thick PET. But thin brass shim stock is even better in terms of ordering up a matching register strip. Where it starts going wacky is when someone affixes their registration tabs to a strip of wood, which is quite unstable.

Checking ACT's specs, their pins are quality controlled within .0005 inch! - well, that would be important to the circuit board industry. And either the 1.5mm dia or 1/16 in dia stainless pins I'm using as a substitute for Condit micro pins are rated .0002" tolerance or better. My Mitutoyo digital caliper won't even read that precisely! Sure beats a common nail sawed off. Oh well, the big astro mirror mfg down the highway measures things in millionths. Just the temp of one's breath will produce a measurable change in the thickness of a machined granite surface block given that kind of sensitivity.

We printmakers have life easy. Was thumbing through my lovely book of Laura Gilpin's work the other day. She's best known for her platinum prints. But there are also repros of her early dye transfer color work, or more likely, pre-DT wash-off relief (in camera separations of still life subjects) - not meticulously sharp by any means, but lovely, lovely, lovely. Likewise her Autochromes.