[pure-silver] Re: DIY enlarger - from your 1936 kitchen
- From: Richard Knoppow <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 02:10:49 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
-----Original Message-----
>From: Jim Brick <jim@xxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Feb 5, 2008 10:57 PM
>To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [pure-silver] Re: DIY enlarger - from your 1936 kitchen
>
>Reminds me of my first enlarger, 1950 at twelve years old, in my
>bedroom closet, on a card table - an old Federal 2-1/4 x 3-1/4
>enlarger. It worked and I still have some prints from it. Te old
>Federal was nothing but a big hollow tube, bulb at the top, neg stage
>toward the bottom, and a lens mount under that. Looking back, I'm
>surprised that it worked as well as it did.
>
>Little Kodak packets of developer & fix. MQ developer I think, Velox
>paper for contact prints and Kodabromide for enlargements. I still
>have some Velox in my freezer... just can't bring myself to throw it
>away! My first camera was a Brownie Hawkeye, followed by an Argus C3,
>followed by a MF folding camera (?), followed (at fourteen) by a new
>Rolleicord III that I got from my uncle's store for $99. I still have
>the Argus C3, but only the box from the Rolleicord :-( !
>
>Jim
>
>
>On Feb 5, 2008, at 7:32 PM, Jeffrey Thorns wrote:
>
>>
>> http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/02/05/kitchen-utensils-make-professional-photo-enlarger/
>>
>> Not exactly refined, but...
>
Projects of this sort abound in magazines of the depression period.
Another place to find them is in amateur radio magazines, chassis made of pie
tins etc. People simply didn't have any money and did what they could to
accomplish their desires with makeshifts. Better a makeshift than nothing.
I am not sure when Kodak began to sell little packets of chemicals. My
guess is the early 1930's. By the late 1940s they were selling the Kodak
Tri-Chem Pak, which had a packet of Kodak Universal Developer, stop bath, and
hypo. Enough for a couple of rolls of film or contact prints from a roll.
Universal developer was something like milder Dektol, suitable for either film
or paper. My first roll of film was developed in this stuff. My dad took a
course in simple photography and brought home a Kodak darkroom in a box. Of
course, I was the one to took up photography, I don't think his law practice
ever allowed him time.
The kit had a couple of the chemical packs, three little trays, film
clips, a packet of Velox and some other stuff including a ruby lamp. This was
nearly sixty years ago and I can still see the film coming up in my mind. An
epiphany if ever there was one.
--
Richard Knoppow
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Los Angeles, CA, USA
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