Upgrade to my contact printing

I dug out the old platemaking vacuum frame I had and finally built a work area in front of the darkroom I can use it in. I call it the dim room. It will share space with the mat cutter and drymount press. Tried it out today, its so much nicer than the little 10x12” contact frame I was using. Ran vacuum with an old Robinair unit. The uv leds are the ones I recently got, really easy to work with, 110v plugs so I just had to use a power strip and plug it into the timer and good to go. Exposure time for van dyke about 12-13 minutes.

The vacuum frame must be a joy to use. I'd definitely go that route if I printed more alt process.
12-13 minutes for a Van Dyke sounds surprisingly long to me. My light box (tubes) gives me 2:50-3:15 for a typical VdB.

I could probably get more bars and make for a shorter time or drop the lamps lower or both. My old black light bulbs gave a slightly longer exposure for a similar density and Im satisfied with what Ive got for a very modest outlay.

glbeas said:

I dug out the old platemaking vacuum frame I had and finally built a work area in front of the darkroom I can use it in.
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That looks like a great setup. Good work. It's also nice that UV LEDs are now up to the task of exposing alt process. Congratulations