I didn't want to hijack Impodave's for sale post so:
Our version of Dia Nippon platesetter.
Auto loader, Accento, Azura plate processor and plate stacker.
100 plate capacity in loader, about 3 1/2 minutes per 670 x 560 size plate once it gets going, First plate takes about 5 minutes from realise from Apogee to delivery finished on stacker.
Driven by Agfa Apogee V10.xxAccento Line 2.jpgAccento.jpg
I'm fairly certain I had that exact same Agfa processor at Sig-1. We fed it with a Screen platemaker, though. Easiest processor ever to clean - only an hour and a half for one guy to make it spotless. Our building was like 100 years old, so it kept frying fuses, so eventually talked to Agfa and IIRC they told me that it typically takes about 12-15 amps to totally fry it, but they factory install a 5 amp fuse, so I could replace it with a 10 amp fuse and make the problem go away, which it did.
yep, probably the easiest and quickest processor I have had to clean. Helps that it runs a water based gum washout solution as well
Best thing we ever did (for my sanity, at least) was move to chem-free plates. The hell with chems & processors. Nobody young enough is left to teach how to deal with it properly & I'm too old and crotchety to deal with it any more. Quality on the new plates are "good enough" for the clueless masses - anybody with an eye for better is dead or retired by now.
I'm just waiting for the cancer diagnosis to come in from all the times that violet shit blew up all over me, and from cleaning up the Pro-Cam mess that always overflowed, at J&M from the Palladio.
follow safety protocols even if you don't want to!
I did after my "Environmental Cancer"
I never followed the MSDS recommendations in all the years I dealt with chemicals-Stupid!
thankfully I don't work with chemicals anymore, I did enjoy processor maintenance, it was relaxing to me.
especially handling of developer, gloves, eye protection, and mask
You had protection? Wow. Our MSDS binder was used as a dust catcher.
I once tried to talk our manager into submitting our place for the show "Dirty Jobs." I figured if cleaning out a couple of processors didn't qualify, nothing would. She wouldn't go for it.
yeah I was like that with the MSDS Sheets, threw them in the recycle bin
I brought in my own eye protection, the developer is bad stuff!
I looked so goofy but my health was more important finally. thankfully I didn't have to do it for very long
I should of had a picture taken ;D Not even sure why it's so funny to protect myself
sorry about the thread jack madbugger
oh man, they went nuts on personal protection at my old job.
they had full face masks, goggles, gloves and a stupid suit to put on while cleaning the processors. It happened shortly after we got the Kodak Flexcell (flexo plates, processor and dryer). The processor had solvent in it that would take the paint off a car, the dryer used UV C light to cure, which will blind you if you look directly at the light.
Fun times.
:o
yeah we have been breathing in corrosive chemicals for years!!
remember changing fixer in a confined darkroom?
hell, I used to swim in developer &fixer.
At my very first job in the printing biz, I was a camera operator shooting b&w, hand developing with trays. They had a huge stack of boxes of dev & fix (you know the ones, cardboard with the plastic bladder inside, I called them "cubitainers ").
Well, one day it rained really hard and the darkroom got flooded, the cardboard boxes on the bottom of the stack collapsed, the ones on top hit the ground and busted open.
I think it was about 12 inches or so deep in the darkroom, somebody had to get it out.
:'(
cubitainers©
:))
well, they were cubes (https://www.thecarycompany.com/containers/plastic/cubitainers) of plastic inside a cardboard container
:afro:
I do not miss film processors. Dirty bastards of things.
Nothing cleared the sinuses like 38º C fixer in a tiny enclosed darkroom.
oh my god yes, I forgot to mention that this place had no air conditioning, I'm in Texas, it was summer.
:grimreaper:
I remember the cube towers ;D
Quote from: David on May 18, 2023, 02:47:17 PMoh my god yes, I forgot to mention that this place had no air conditioning, I'm in Texas, it was summer.
:grimreaper:
That soup on the floor would have been something else.
I'm old enough to have had the pleasure of cleaning LITHO film processors. Racks 4x as big and nastier / harder to clean, in fact - rapid access etc... barely even counts compared to litho IMO :P
did you have the one with the crane to lift the racks out cause they were so big and heavy?
we did for a while, forgot the name.
when I was tray developing, no one had processors around us, one guy down the street built one and patented it, then sold the patent. Not sure who ended up with it.
But yeah, a few years later I was knee deep in film processors, livin' la vida loca
Quote from: born2print on May 18, 2023, 03:11:52 PMI'm old enough to have had the pleasure of cleaning LITHO film processors. Racks 4x as big and nastier / harder to clean, in fact - rapid access etc... barely even counts compared to litho IMO :P
Quote from: David on May 18, 2023, 03:38:54 PMdid you have the one with the crane to lift the racks out cause they were so big and heavy?
we did for a while, forgot the name.
when I was tray developing, no one had processors around us, one guy down the street built one and patented it, then sold the patent. Not sure who ended up with it.
But yeah, a few years later I was knee deep in film processors, livin' la vida loca
Yeah we had one with the crane to lift out the racks because two grown men could not lift them out. Always had to replace gears, rollers, springs etc...while cleaning and the job always had to be done on second shift because the deadbeat prima donnas on day shift were too busy to do it. They probably would have f#&%ed it up anyway. I'd rather be shredded with razor blades in dipped in alcohol than to clean one of those again.
did you guys get to play with any silver recovery stuff?
you don't know what stink is until you do
We had a setup that we would send off a batch, get it processed, and they would send us back a bar of silver.
Quote from: David on May 18, 2023, 04:23:45 PMdid you guys get to play with any silver recovery stuff?
you don't know what stink is until you do
We had a setup that we would send off a batch, get it processed, and they would send us back a bar of silver.
Yeah silver recovery was a big thing. I think the company just got cash. This was World Color. Later bought by Quebecor and became Quebecor World. Later bought by Quad. Which also I think ended up buying your old place. It is like 6 degrees of David and Joe. Another interesting fact. My middle name is David.
We just sold our old negs to some place that recovered silver.
Cubitainers? Yeah, and we had a few dirty spouts from them just laying around.
Quote from: Joe on May 18, 2023, 05:25:23 PMIt is like 6 degrees of David and Joe. Another interesting fact. My middle name is David.
That is so weird, my middle name is Joe.
Not
:lmao:
Quote from: David on May 18, 2023, 03:38:54 PMdid you have the one with the crane to lift the racks out cause they were so big and heavy?
we did for a while, forgot the name.
when I was tray developing, no one had processors around us, one guy down the street built one and patented it, then sold the patent. Not sure who ended up with it.
But yeah, a few years later I was knee deep in film processors, livin' la vida loca
Our Agfa44 OLP had that, but not because of depth, it was a girth issue :)
Quote from: David on May 18, 2023, 04:23:45 PMdid you guys get to play with any silver recovery stuff?
you don't know what stink is until you do
We had a setup that we would send off a batch, get it processed, and they would send us back a bar of silver.
Yup! We did that forever... until the laws made it as if you were a haz mat processing facility instead of a print shop that is helping the environment.
Quote from: Possum on May 18, 2023, 06:17:36 PMWe just sold our old negs to some place that recovered silver.
Right, we did that too, the recovery that we did ourselves was from the processor chem
first place i worked at sold film and fixer for silver recovery.
second place was a trade house, so we had very little waste film, not worth the effort.
third place ( current ) sold film early on, but silver was worth very little back then and again, hardly worth the effort. went ctp about 15 yrs ago so no more film.
When I worked at the Newspaper we cleaned processors everyday!!
back then everything went down the drain ;D
black lacquer anyone?
How about the yellow sludge at the bottom of the fixer compartment of a phototypesetting processor? A co-worker said it looked like baby poop. Except she didn't use the word poop.
Quote from: David on May 18, 2023, 02:47:17 PMoh my god yes, I forgot to mention that this place had no air conditioning, I'm in Texas, it was summer.
:grimreaper:
Try working in a pressroom in a Fresno summer. It would get so hot the ink would separate and get stringy. With those presses running, it was easily 120+ F out there. The pressman would come in at like 3 am and work until noon and go home. Hell, even in Sac at Sig-1, we shut down the digital presses by 2 because if you ran them after, you couldn't cool off the building and you'd start popping fuses.
Quote from: born2print on May 18, 2023, 03:11:52 PMI'm old enough to have had the pleasure of cleaning LITHO film processors. Racks 4x as big and nastier / harder to clean, in fact - rapid access etc... barely even counts compared to litho IMO :P
Yup we had a rapid access processor for typesetting galleys (via Compugraphic Q5000 and Pagitek 5 systems to Linotypes) and Litho processor for film and stability prints and color keys. Cleaning the Litho processor was a Saturday job, wow, just so much work, and being hyper yout really made it a challenge :).