After building a few UV boxes and seeing more built by others, I am surprised at how well some rather odd configurations work. A few years ago an experiment was carried out by a respected alt photo worker where she place a strip of black tape on every other tube in a fluorescent box. The paper was laid directly on the tubes and there was no banding.
All this to say, I see no reason your idea won't work. Give it a try.
I use two of those bulbs for making dye-imbibition matrices (which have no pigment in them, just dichromated gelatin) and my exposures are in the 50 minute ballpark. Also, they are susceptible to voltage fluctuations & consequent spectral changes.
I have an old "photocrat" contact printer very similar to the one in your shot. I've got a CFL UV bulb in it and it works great for contact printing 4x5 prints. Check my gallery for "under the bridge", its an argyrotype I made on it. You should be fine.
Hi,
I think it depends on the process. I have found that these lights work well for dichromate sensitized systems,like gum/dichromate. On the otherhand, so called black lights are useless for ferric oxalate senitization, as in Pt/Pd printing.
Bill
I am wondering what is the correct bulb to buy (curly CFL blacklight) to buy in order to use alternate process printing in a standard contact printer like this (I have a large contact printer already). Thanks.
Thanks, my contact printer has three E26 (standard) bases. Rated two x25 watt exposure bulbs + one 7-1/2 red safelight 57-1/2 watt total max. I think two of those small FEIT 15 watt CFL will fit, pretty sure!