Rotary print washer - new to me!

[Dave Gustafson]

Anyone have experience with a rotary print washer? A friend gave me his and I tried it for the first time tonight. It’s kind of mesmerizing watching the prints circling!

 

[Milpool]

Anyone have experience with a rotary print washer? A friend gave me his and I tried it for the first time tonight. It’s kind of mesmerizing watching the prints circling!
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I hadn’t seen that particular type/brand before but Sebastian/California Stainless makes circular washers that work on a similar principle. https://www.sebastiandarkroomprod.com/print_washers.php

 

[AnselMortensen]

I have a similar one, but without the rotating tray.
Getting the prints to float around in a circle without sticking together requires precise aiming of the one water jet.

 

[mshchem]

Fiber base paper works in these. Be careful of too cold water, here cold water from the tap rarely gets above 50°F. I always wanted to put a pump one of these. Run it for 10 minutes, dump and refill .

Really pretty cool. I seem to recall one of these used glass marbles as a ball bearing ?

 

[MattKing]

I got most use of one of those while working as a darkroom technician in a large newspaper darkroom in the late 1970s.
The setup was really intriguing. It was positioned under a chute that served as a light trap as well.
The prints were fixed under safelight and then dropped into the chute which discharged them into the washer below, which was in a lighted room
The entire process was oriented for speed - deadlines needed to be met - and I both had to make prints for photographers who weren't there to do their own as well as help the photographers who were printing their work move their completed prints though the wash and dry states quickly.
It was a great job!

 

[Carnie Bob]

We use a calumet stainless steel print washer similar to this at photo school 1974 era, it is good for general washing but I would not consider it an archival washer, if you are doing quick rc contacts and tests its perfect.

 

[Randy Stewart]

Back in the 1960s ad 70s, some version of these were very common in small use situations like schools, although most not as fancy (no rotating tray). The spray spins the prints around in a circular path to keep them in motion and not sticking together, while water is slowly exchanged to remove hypo soaking out of the fiber-based prints. IMO at the time, they were fairly useless in practice, as you had to get a very exact amount of spray to keep the prints from sticking together and blocking hypo from leaching out of the paper, while keeping the print moving to insure adequate agitation. When resin-coated paper becoming dominant in the 1970s, wash times went from 60 to 5 minutes, so long term wash systems like these largely vanished. Serious fiber paper users shifted to slot washers or tray siphons, etc., which do a much better job anyway, washing each print separately.

 

[Tina Kino]

It’s kind of mesmerizing watching the prints circling!

..how does it work? Would love to see a video

 

[Paul Howell]

I use a drum washer, light, easy to set up and take down, as I use Perma Wash I can cut my non archival wash time down to 5 mints. For archival I revert to an archival print washer.

 

[pentaxuser]

I use a drum washer, light, easy to set up and take down,

Me too. Mine's a Bosch. Great on clothes as well but not easy to take down.

pentaxuser

 

[George Collier]

I've never had confidence that prints would stay separated. I use an archival washer with plexiglass dividers. Expensive, but you can run the water extremely slow for a longer time, which allows optimum conditions for chems to leach out of the fiber base paper.

 

[Paul Howell]

A drum washer does an excellent job of separating the prints as the drum revolves as the rate the drum turns is slow, too much water pressure the drum turns too fast and prints are held against the drum.

 

[MarkS]

They are good for banging up the edges of your prints, and not that great for removing fixer. Those are good reasons why this type of device was superseded by slot-type "archival" washers.
When I went to work at Kodak in the mid-80s my department used one of those machines, made by Calumet, I think. It was replaced around 1987 by a "Royalprint" roller-transport processor... that made life much easier.

 

[Paul Howell]

I don't have any trouble with edges being bent, I only use my drum washer for work prints, for "archival" I use a slot washer, perma wash and 1 hour wash. When I printing large 16X20 and 20X24 I used a kiddy wading pool, 2 Kodak siphon washers, one print at a time, perma wash and a hour, tested for fixer residue, always out clean.

 

[George Collier]

We used drum washers in the Army in the 60's. Used a lot of water, could (but not always) be rough on prints.

 

[Paul Howell]

We had them in the Air Force as well, Peko, we used Kodak Hypo Clearing to cut the wash time down. My drum washer is powered by water flow, the big units that could wash up to 20X24 were electric. I don't recall any real issues with bending prints or dog eared corners.

 

[Randy Stewart]

I have not seen one of these print washers in 50 years, and rightly so. My experience with one was that it was nearly impossible to keep at least some the prints from sticking together, so I had to tend the thing constantly. Overall, I found a Kodak tray siphon to be more effective. The natural tendency was to increase the water flow and spray pressure to force faster circulation of prints in the bath, but on larger fiber prints, that could cause corner damage. Unless you have a need to crack out a large volume of small prints, IMO they are worthless.

 

[eli griggs]

Prints sticking together was the only issue I had with one of these but hypo clear helps with washing.

I now use the (an old) Ilford method for prints.

On second look, the ones I used did not spray from the lid but used a direct line to rotate the water flow in a circular rotation. OM.

 

[mshchem]

From my experience, the best I've used is a beautiful old galvanized steel version, smaller maybe 18-20 inches across. Has a metal spout that produces a strong stream, I use for a pre-wash for fiber prints before going into a slotted washer.

All these things are water wasteful. MHOFWIW

 

[eli griggs]

From my experience, the best I've used is a beautiful old galvanized steel version, smaller maybe 18-20 inches across. Has a metal spout that produces a strong stream, I use for a pre-wash for fiber prints before going into a slotted washer.

All these things are water wasteful. MHOFWIW

You can get double-triple the use out of the same batch of water if you can add “steps” to your washing set-up and starting at the bottom for dirtiest water, middle step for the second rinse and end up at the top for cleanest wash water, how ever high you want your steps to be.

 

[mshchem]

You can get double-triple the use out of the same batch of water if you can add “steps” to your washing set-up and starting at the bottom for dirtiest water, middle step for the second rinse and end up at the top for cleanest wash water, how ever high you want your steps to be.

I use a recirculation pump on my slot washer. Get vigorous flow excellent washing. Magnetic drive pumps from minilab machines. I rinse the prints briefly after hypo clearing agent, then into the washer. I run 10 minutes, dump the water, refill the washer fast, usually with a bucket, wash 10 minutes, dump refill and wash 10-20 minutes .

Get better washing, no surface air bubbles on the paper, excellent temperature control.

You mentioned the steps method, counter current flow is how every minilab works. The last wash slowly flows into the second which flows into the first wash, which flows into the drain.

My thing is I want control of agitation (vigorous), and I wash at 68-75°F.

I tried saving the water to flush toilets, didn't pass the wife test