Old Kodachrome lines

[Stephen Frizza]

Does anyone here know of where any mothballed Kodachrome processors are?
I am sure many have been sent to the scrap yards but apart from rocky mountain film lab does anyone know of anyone else who's got one awaiting patiently in storage?

Also has anyone here worked as a kodachrome processing technician and if so where were you running a the processing line?

 

[John Shriver]

There's probably several K-labs out there, but Kodak won't make the necessary bag-in-box chemicals, so they are pretty close to useless. A&I probably didn't find a buyer for theirs.

 

[Captain_joe6]

so if kodak won't make the necessary chemicals to run in these processors, how do the existing, operating processors keep operating?

 

[Photo Engineer]

Kodak sells both bag in a box, and individual chemicals, you just cannot find them on the Kodak web site. I have a list of the coupler product numbers here and prices, but they are dreadfully out of date and totally useless now.

Dwanes gets theirs, I assure you.

PE

 

[tjaded]

I saw the prices on our Kodak order form online...I also remember one of the owners of our lab saying how shocked they were at the price of the Kodachrome stuff--they stopped doing Kodachrome in the late 80's/early 90's. I can check the prices out this week if anyone is interested...

Matt

 

[Aurum]

The prices all come down to volume and demand.

C41, cheap as chips, as tonnes of the stuff used every year by every Tom, Dick and Harriet.
K12, well its not going to be cheap with only one customer, but I suspect that list price for the chemicals is meaningless in this context.

List price is always a guidepoint when you're buying bulk chemicals. The actual is sorted out between yourself and the supplier to whatever commercial deal you can beat out

 

[tjaded]

I stand semi-corrected. The only thing that Kodak had was the dye. The rest of the chemistry is just scratch, ordered from any chemical house. I spent a good bit of time trying to find the dye prices today with no luck. I've got one of the lab owners doing a bit of homework for me. I'll post whatever I find when/if I find they still have it!

 

[Photo Engineer]

There are 3 couplers and 2 developing agents involved. Last I checked, Kodak still supplied bag in a box to Dwaynes, but Dwaynes may be scratch mixing by now. I thought it was a custom thing for them by Kodak.

Each coupler runs several hundred dollars / kg. The formulas are in the patent.

PE

 

[John Shriver]

Well, I thought I read that there was special packaging of the chemistry for the K-labs that Kodak discontinued when the K-lab in Japan shut down. Dwayne's is running a "cine" style Kodachrome line.

Of course, the other question about the couplers and developing agents is whether any of them have any other use in the world besides developing Kodachrome. For instance, is there any other market for CD6? My hunch is that for at least some of them, the answer is no. When Kodak pulls the plug on Dwayne's Kodachrome line, I suspect Kodak will stop synthesizing some of the raw chemicals.

 

[Photo Engineer]

There is no use for Kodachrome chemistry AFAIK except for processing Kodachrome. CD6 is included.

PE

 

[John Shriver]

So once Kodak pulls the plug on Kodachrome, unless you're really good at synthesizing organic chemicals, you're not going to be home-brewing Kodachrome chemistry. Kodak will stop making CD6, etc. The patents, of course, do not reveal the best way to make these chemicals. That, I'm sure, is a trade secret.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Any competent organic chemist can make them, and just OTOMH, CD6 seems to be rather easy to make staring with CD-4 or some such.

PE

 

[Aurum]

Any competent organic chemist can make them, and just OTOMH, CD6 seems to be rather easy to make staring with CD-4 or some such.

PE

That is the sort of thing I had to do at University. A final year project where you were given a target chemical that you had to research and synthesise from scratch.
Amine chemistry though is smelly, temperature dependant and not the sort of thing you can really do at home without getting your hands on materials that certainly in the USA will be controlled by customs and the BATF due to them being capable of being used for drug manufacture. Also as the temperatures will need to be controlled, you stand a good chance of turning your dark room into a daylight room if you're not careful.
Thats without the steps needed to get the stuff pure enough to use without causing colour shifts that will make your favourite aunty look like the she hulk

There are plenty of custom fine chemical houses out there that will knock up a few kilo's on the bench for special orders, for a price, and I would suspect that EK probably goes that route when they need to stock up, unless they do all this sort of stuff in house

 

[PHOTOTONE]

There are plenty of custom fine chemical houses out there that will knock up a few kilo's on the bench for special orders, for a price, and I would suspect that EK probably goes that route when they need to stock up, unless they do all this sort of stuff in house

Are you aware (surely you are), that Kodak sold its processing chemistry plant a couple of years ago? Now all the chemicals are made by this independent company under contract to Kodak. This company (forgot the name) also makes Chemistry under its own name, and also private labels.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Are you aware (surely you are), that Kodak sold its processing chemistry plant a couple of years ago? Now all the chemicals are made by this independent company under contract to Kodak. This company (forgot the name) also makes Chemistry under its own name, and also private labels.

This company, from France, makes all of Kodak's color and B&W prepackaged chemistry, but AFAIK they do not synthesize anything from scratch. That is a whole different beast.

Last I heard, some of this was being made by Eastman Chemicals, which was at Kodak Park but has now been absorbed by Tennessee Eastman.

In any event, CD-6 is CD-4 with a methyl group added to an ethoxy side chain. I have not thought it out much, but addition of a methyl group should not be much of a pain as long as you protect the free amine and make sure it is made under nitrogen. See how easy?

You change Et-N-CH2-CH2-OH to Et-N-CH2-CH2-O-CH3 where the nitrogen is attached to the benzene ring and Et is the other ethyl group. First year organic chemistry!

PE

 

[nworth]

Any competent organic chemist can make them, and just OTOMH, CD6 seems to be rather easy to make staring with CD-4 or some such.

PE

CD-6 synthesis from CD-4 might not be too bad, although you would have to purify and crystallize it, which might take some effort. The couplers, on the other hand, may be real beasts.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Phenols and napthols are cyans, cyano acetoacetates are yellows and pyrazolones are magentas. There ya go! See how easy?

Just look at the structures. I would start with pivalic acid and make the acetoacetate for the yellow, and use a p-chloro napthol for the cyan.

PE

 

[dr5chrome]

A&I's machine was bought by Rocky Mountain, and they have one at their Denver location, they have 2 of these machines. The A&I machine is in storage in LA. RM has no intention in starting up the processors.

Not only did A&I 'site' mix their chemistry, so does Dwayne's.

I understood Kodak sold their chemistry division to Champion in Canada? At least that's what one Kodak rep told me as well as a company rep from CPAC.

At our supply shop here in Denver I saw some roll RA-4 paper come in. It had been shipped from the UK.

dw

There's probably several K-labs out there, but Kodak won't make the necessary bag-in-box chemicals, so they are pretty close to useless. A&I probably didn't find a buyer for theirs.

 

[Photo Engineer]

The 40" paper is made in the UK, the wider color paper is made in Colorado. Champion is the company, but it is French. They are currently using Kodak facilities at Kodak Park.

PE

 

[Neanderman]

They are currently using Kodak facilities at Kodak Park.

PE

Out-source, on-site. Interesting...

 

[Photo Engineer]

Well, they bought the equipment I think, and it is easier to use as-is than moving it.

PE

 

[Aurum]

Out-source, on-site. Interesting...

Its a pretty common occurance these days for manufacturers who once did everything on site all under the same sign over the gate

I can name several large well known companies that have done the same in the UK. As long as nobody loses out it can have advantages, in that they can now do non EK work without the lawyers going ape about competition legislation and the like

 

[alanrockwood]

... Kodak will stop making CD6, etc. The patents, of course, do not reveal the best way to make these chemicals. That, I'm sure, is a trade secret.

If what you say is true then, unless the inventors were unaware of the best mode when the inventors applied for the patent, Kodak is treading on thin ice. Patent laws require that the inventor disclose the best mode of the invention. Mixing trade secrets with patents runs the risk of invalidating the patent under certain conditions. Here is a link to a good discussion of patents and trade secrets.

www.hosteny.com/archive/hosteny 08-00.pd

 

[Photo Engineer]

Alan;

As co-holder of that patent, I can assure you that the patent discloses the entire Kodachrome process, as it is a process patent. It does not, OTOH, disclose synthetic routes to any of the chemicals used. That is not needed, and is simply dismissed by the statement "obtained by means known to one skilled in the art".

I am an organic chemist and photo engineer. I can look at a chemical formula and generally figure out several pretty good routes to synthesizing it. My skills are a bit rusty now, but a good chemist could do this at a glance. A good photo engineer could come up with several useful developers and couplers to try in the process as well.

It is moot anyhow, as Kodak donated the Kodachrome process to the public domain due to lack of interest in competition. It was useless to have a patent, pay the maintenance fees, and have absolutely no interest in the chemistry.

PE

 

[alanrockwood]

As co-holder of that patent, I can assure you that the patent discloses the entire Kodachrome process, as it is a process patent...

PE

Photo Engineer. What you say makes sense. I am sure that Kodak is an expert in patents and would be careful to make sure that all things are in proper order so as to not risk their intellectual property. However, it's nice to hear the word first hand in this case.

By the way, I am also a chemist, though my expertise runs toward physical chemistry, mass spectrometry, instrumentation development and (now) clinical chemistry.