Contact Printing Machines

Does anyone here use one of those old contact printing machines for LF contacts here--the kind with many bulbs in a box underneath, a diffuser and sheet of glass for the neg(s), and then the paper goes face down on that, and there is a platen to hold the whole thing down? I've used one long ago, but just for small format contact sheets, before I was using LF.

 

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Do you feel you can get enough control over burning and dodging by switching on and off the lamps (compared to contact printing in the conventional way and dodging by hand), or are these devices really just suitable for proofs, and not for fine prints (without making lith masks and such)?

I use one. I got one primarily because I was really fritzing my eyes

with a bare bulb above the printing frame. These do make life a bit

easier on that score. Switching off certain bulbs provides gross

dodging possibilities. However, most of these printers come with a

glass plate between the bulbs and the paper that lies on the top

glass plate. On the middle glass plate, you can place dodging tools

cut to any shape your heart desires. Also, if you like that kind of

stuff, you can play fancy games such as utilizing paint (for example,

to dodge with blue light and burn with green light for VC papers, or

just dodge with a yellow dye to hold back the blue light with graded

papers). I don't like applying paint on the glass, so I cleared a

dozen or so sheets of lith film in a fixer, giving me sheets of plain

film - I paint the dye mask on the film and life is kind of easy

after that.

Cheers, DJ

I have one too, although it only has 9 lamps...I have used a large

Arkay contact printer years ago that had 25 some odd lamps, and would

take long rolls of paper as well. I think Stouffer is about the only

company that still makes contact printers, although these are really

expensive, production lab equipment. The lamps are on rods actually,

that you can vary the height on I believe....

 

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Mine has 3 layers of glass as well as an opal type sheet for

diffusion. It has a red bulb switched to the platen lock, so when the

lid is open the safelight is on, when you shut the platen--the white

lights switch on. It has masking blades as well...mine's an 8x10

model. I've used it with VC papers as well, I actually have some old

roll-sheets of contrast filters scavenged off a 70's era contact

printer...I've used one or two that had the filters on these reel type

attachments....

 

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I use it mostly for duping old negs 1:1, but have used it with Azo as

well...I run it off a voltage stabilizer, and my exposures are like 10

seconds with Azo. Even with just the 9 lamps, you can get good control

switching them on & off individually...I have used small cut-outs of

tissue or frosted acetate on the middle stage below, as well as

tacking wax-paper to the masking blades on top as well....

 

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I learned some of this stuff from old-timers that I've met from when

contact printers were the thing used in the production labs...and they

still are in some places...if you can find an old Photolab index from

the 50's or a Kodak lab manual of that vintage as well, you can see

some of this technique explained.

Thanks for the responses and keep them coming. I occasionally see

these things available cheaply, and they seem like an interesting

possibility. I may try one.

I've used one for 6 foot long Cirkut negs and the control you get is

better than lights on top. Having said that I find them too slow to

set up for one off jobs but great for production runs. I now print my

Cirkut negs with a dichroic head over the top, much faster to set up,

dodging and burning no problem once you get the hang of moving around

a big neg, this is good for three or four prints but you can't beat a

contact printer for speed when you're doing production runs.

yeah, you can find them dirt cheap used now because they're sorta like

"white elephants" for used camera shops....mine was crammed under a

bunch of junk in the back of a store...I paid about twenty bucks for

it...

Where can I find plans on constructing one of these? I'd like to see how it works with multiple fluorescent bulbs.