Who owns A dip and Dunk Film Processor

Stephen Frizza

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I am curious who else here owns and operates a Dip and Dunk film processor? I own a C-41 tecnolab, E-6 tecnolab and B&W Tecnolab Ide love to know who else is out there who's running similar machines.
 

ic-racer

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I don't know much about these. What is the B&W Tecnolab? Its good for fine art film processing? Is it a dip and dunk?
 

apconan

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ic-racer said:
I don't know much about these. What is the B&W Tecnolab? Its good for fine art film processing? Is it a dip and dunk?
Click to expand...

Hahaha, enlighten me, what's the difference between "finer art film processing" and other types of "film processing".
 

ic-racer

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apconan said:
Hahaha, enlighten me, what's the difference between "finer art film processing" and other types of "film processing".
Click to expand...

When I think of commercial B&W processing in the USA I think of the "Versamat" which we called the "Scratchamat" back in the 70s. It was totally unsuitable for processing anything other than cheap consumer B&W snapshots. Getting B&W film processed at a commercial facility was not something even members of our Junior High photo club would even have considered.

So, the question is really, 'is that thing better than the Versamat?'
 
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Tim Gray

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I don't, but I'd love to get one for C-41. Just so I could process it easily at my leisure. I obviously don't go through enough color film though for it to be worth my while.
 
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Stephen Frizza

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Dip and Dunk Processing is a scratch proof method of processing (unless something goes horridly wrong) Which on a well maintained machine it doesnt. The Film is placed onto a hanger and is lifted and lowered into a huge tanks of chemistry (hence dip and dunk) and the film hangs suspended in chemistry touching nothing and is gently agitated by pea sized bubbles of Nitrogen gas. Once the film is processed it is gently air dried and is ready to be printed, scanned, sleeved , mounted etc.... it is perhaps the best method for film processing because it is so gentle on the film. I have attached an image of one of these machines in the link below. These machines are quite large, and have rooms dedicated to them.

http://www.tecnolab-international.com/tecnolab/images/fotografia/Delta20micro.jpg
 

ic-racer

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That is fantastic. So you actually have one of these for B&W? Where did you get it and does it need to be running all the time, etc?
 

David A. Goldfarb

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Sixty-Eight Degrees lab in New York has a Refrema dip and dunk for B&W. It holds something like 160 gallons of Xtol.
 

nickandre

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I want a processor which will hold 6 one liter SS tanks of chemistry at exactly 100 degrees. I wonder where I could find one...maybe build one?
 

David A. Goldfarb

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Arkay might make something like that. They make stainless steel tank systems with water jackets. You set it up with water circulating through the water jacket to maintain the temperature of the tank line. They're expensive, but sometimes you can find used ones cheap.
 

gordrob

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tiberiustibz said:
I want a processor which will hold 6 one liter SS tanks of chemistry at exactly 100 degrees. I wonder where I could find one...maybe build one?
Click to expand...

I found an old Leedal stainless steel tank about 3' long and 10" wide - came with 9 stainless steel tanks for 5x7 hangers. A friend provided me with a temperature control unit with a recirculating pump from a piece of medical equipment that can control the temperature of the water bath within 1/2 degree F. The system does a great job with 4x5 and 5x7 E6 & C41 and I have built a panel to suspend stainless steel roll film tanks in the water bath to do 35mm and 120 roll film. Not pretty but it works great.

Gord
 

bwfans

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Technolab is overkill for personal use.

How about a simplfied home-made dip-dunk system: maintain your room temperature at 68-72 degrees, buy six plastic barrels to hold all chemicals - some green plastic garbage cans can hold 55 gallons of temperature stabilized chemicals - use plastic cloth hangers as film hangers ...

This "system" can develop up to 20 inch negatives. or 12-24 rolls at one time. If you buy a dozen gabage cans, you can even have dip and dunk processors for both films and prints.

Just need to hold the cloth hangers for a while in the dark, with music tuned on and shake your hangers .
 
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