RE: home-made film driers

>>>>Has anyone build a small film drying cabinet?

Hey, yeah I 've built a couple..one similar to the bag idea already
mentioned. I built another one (better) out of an old surplus school locker.
I wedged some wooden "rails" along the side & had a row or two of
coathangers spread across these--actually straightened out--with plastic
clothespins on them to hang film from. I kept it really clean, and just hung
the film in there to air dry. I used another darkroom with a similar
home-grown dryer made out of a locker as well, but that one had a
cannabilized heat/filtered fan unit from another film cabinet....

I work in a lab as well, with a nicer, big Leedal cabinet...but another lab
nearby had a dryer they made. They basically constructed a large
freestanding wooden closet, and had a whole mess of incandescent lightbulbs
wired into the bottom....they had wire strung up around the top of the unit
with lots of stainless steel film clips....this lab ran a big tankline &
would do about 90 some odd 4x5 sheets in a run. All the film was dried by
radiant heat this way---for years. They finally bought a "real" cabinet
though....but that old one worked pretty good for what it was.

It might also be possible to rig up a poor-man's version of a Senrac
dryer....that company made film dryers that used forced heat to dry the film
still on the stainless steel reels---I've used these as well, but the film
dries with a bad curl to it...dries fast though! About 5-10 minutes...They
were a long tube that would hold about a dozen Nikkor reels maybe, with a
filtered fan & heater at one end.....it was made to mount the unit to a
wall, with the heater at the top, there was a catch that came across the
bottom to keep the reels from falling out...if you were in a hurry, you'd
just pack the reels with the film on it up closer with some empty ones....I
imagine you could make one with some old tin cans or something...

My drying cabinet in my own darkroom uses a forced air as well, that's
filtered through this spongey/mesh material that can be rinsed out &
re-used. Works great....not home-made though.

KT
Received on Wed Mar 6 18:17:23 2002