Home made print washer.

[Guest]

I am not going to spend hundreds of dollars on a print washer, after all what can go into one that makes them so costly.
I can Tig weld, so I am either going to weld a stainless steel cabinet up and make a print holder of Perspex or make the whole lot out of Perspex.
I have been using a small Lowes bought pool pump in a tub full of water, this circulates the water at a rate of 160 gallons per hour, I change the water three times. By building the cabinet and using the pump to circulate the water into the box at the bottom, allowing it to overflow back into the tub and be
reintroduced over and over should do the trick.
What do you chaps use.
Cheers,
James.

 

[Particular]

I built myself an 8x10 print washer based on a plastic aquarium years ago. I made slots from modeling plastic (polystyrene). It worked fine, but wasn't really rugged enough. I kept having to glue some of the parts back in. I finally gave up on it.
With a little planning you should be able to make it as good as is available on the market.

 

[slm]

I'd be really interested in seeing the end result. It's something I need myself, but I haven't looked into building one (yet).

 

[dap]

I am not going to spend hundreds of dollars on a print washer, after all what can go into one that makes them so costly.
I can Tig weld, so I am either going to weld a stainless steel cabinet up and make a print holder of Perspex or make the whole lot out of Perspex.
I have been using a small Lowes bought pool pump in a tub full of water, this circulates the water at a rate of 160 gallons per hour, I change the water three times. By building the cabinet and using the pump to circulate the water into the box at the bottom, allowing it to overflow back into the tub and be
reintroduced over and over should do the trick.
What do you chaps use.
Cheers,
James.

I think the price is directly related to demand. I imagine that there can't be many sold in todays market.

I use a versalab print washer. It is basically a large plastic tub that has removable dividers (sheets of plastic made held together by stainless threaded rod and spacers). There is a rod that the water flows into and it sprays into each compartment. The water is removed continually from the bottom via a siphon system (no mechanical pumps involved). I would guess that most work off of a similar design theory.

The design is pretty simple and if you have the time and know-how it shouldn't be too hard to recreate. That being said, you might want to watch the auction site for 2nd hand models. Sometimes you can nab them pretty cheap (under $100). I know I have seen the paterson models go for under $100 on a regular basis.