Silly question- film coating

[ZorkiKat]

Silver halide recipes can be found. Directions on coating this on glass plates are also available. Question is, would it be possible to make coating machines which can make film on a very, very, very small scale basis? Installed in a darkroom perhaps? Only BW not necessarily panchro emulsions considered....just a silly thought brought about by BW film disappearing from shelves... 😀

Jay

 

[oftheherd]

Silver halide recipes can be found. Directions on coating this on glass plates are also available. Question is, would it be possible to make coating machines which can make film on a very, very, very small scale basis? Installed in a darkroom perhaps? Only BW not necessarily panchro emulsions considered....just a silly thought brought about by BW film disappearing from shelves... 😀

Jay

I think several firms still sell photo emulsions that can be coated on to whatever surface you want. There is one I know for sure, J&C I think it is. Look for Efke film on ebay for the correct name of the firm then google it. Photographers Formulary may also have it. Not sure that is what you are looking for since you mention an machine for coating. I guess I wonder if a machine would be necessary. Since I have never used it, I can't tell you anything more about it.

 

[ZorkiKat]

I think several firms still sell photo emulsions that can be coated on to whatever surface you want. There is one I know for sure, J&C I think it is. Look for Efke film on ebay for the correct name of the firm then google it. Photographers Formulary may also have it. Not sure that is what you are looking for since you mention an machine for coating. I guess I wonder if a machine would be necessary. Since I have never used it, I can't tell you anything more about it.

I was thinking of a small, simple, mythical(?) machine which could be used for coating not too long strips of plastic to make photofilm. Something which could be cut to strips and backed with paper to make rollfilm 😀 Or even into narrower strips and perforated for feeding you-know-whats 😛.

Those ready-made emulsions should be fine to start with as coating material, or it could be made up using one of the recipes on the net.

Perforating would really be hard to do. Years ago, in the motion picture history documentary "Hollywood", a segment showed a film-perforating machine which did nothing but punch out little holes on the sides of 35mm film.

Jay

 

[varjag]

It can probably be done, but you would still need to find acetate base for the film somewhere. Then, you need particular sort of gelatin which will adhere to the base, be robust enough to not crack with time etc. You'll probably have to forget about antihaliation layer, several different sensitivity layers and such. Most likely, the quality would not be suitable for small format photography: it'll be more like expensive 1920s technology film which will make Svema look exciting in comparision 🙂

 

[bmattock]

There have been a couple of stories, including news reports, of a retired Kodak engineer (Ron Mowrey) who felt he could buy some of the machines and special blades used for coating film and refurbish them and make his own B&W film. He has had some limited success.

But consider this - he says that it is much easier to coat glass plates and paper than film. He's managed to make some approximately 25 ISO B&W large format film - even he says the quality is crap. He now believes it is not possible to make on a garage or amatuer basis, and he's a well-regarded authority on the subject.

I've talked to several people who claim that making film is no big deal, they could do it in their garage. Well, no, actually. If you have 100 million US dollars, you might be able to build a small facility to make B&W. Maybe - if the EPA allows it. Remember, the most polluted spot on earth is centered in Rochester. If Kodak shut down today, no way would the EPA allow them to start back up. It is merely grandfather clauses that allow them to continue making film.

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=17182

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks